Blancpain GT Endurance – Paul Ricard 1000km Beckons for Perel

Kessel Ferrari driver David Perel heads to the South of France next week to take part in the third round of the Blancpain Endurance Series. South African Perel will race against 60 other GT3 cars into the night in a 1000km, six hour race on the Paul Ricard circuit recently announced as the future host of the French F1 Grand Prix.

“Paul Ricard is a track I know well as we’ve done a decent amount of testing there over the last two years,” the Cape Town driver explained. “We were testing there earlier this year and our pace was really good.”

The main challenge of the race will be the high temperatures the drivers endure during their stints, coupled to the fact that most of them will drive for two hours straight. “We consider this race as preparation for the big one — the 24 Hours of Spa, so being able to do a two hour stint in the car in such high temperatures, is perfect for our build up. “It may not be comfortable but then everyone could do it!”

Having just come off a double win in Zolder in the Blancpain Sprint Series, Perel is hoping to carry his winning streak into the Endurance Format. “Both my co-drivers, Italian Marco Zanuttini and Belgian Jacques Duyver, are also well prepared which makes me confident that we can fight at the front of our class.

“That said you can have the best car, drivers and setup and still hit trouble, so winning is not guaranteed but we will put in maximum effort to try.” Racing gets underway on Saturday June 24 at 6pm GMT+2. You can watch it live on YouTube.com/GTWorld.