Preview: 12 Hours of Spa
It was only two weeks ago that IVRA officials announced which teams qualified for the new season.
Thanks to a convincing effort in Pre-Qualifying at Barber in Alabama, the team’s two Porsche 991 RSR GTE successfully qualified for the new season.
Team veteran drivers Manuel Mayer and Pascal Theis will compete driving the team’s No. 284 Porsche in GT PRO. For the opening championship round the German duo will receive support from Julian Bell as a third driver in the car.
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© 2020 Fischer Motorsport
Manuel Mayer, Pascal Theis and Julian Bell will pilot the No. 284 Porsche 991 RSR GTE in this weekend's IVRA Endurance Series season opener at Spa
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Benjamin Fischer and Nathan Manning, who won the iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans earlier this year together with Mayer and Theis, will take on the grid in the No. 385 Porsche in GT AM with Benjamin Fischer, competing for the championship in the lowest class of the field.
Round one will take the 55-car grid to the legendary Belgian racetrack of Spa-Francorchamps. Over the course of twelve hours, starting Saturday 16:00 CEST / 10 am EDT, going into the sunset and night hours, the race will finish in total darkness at 4:00 am local time.
“This will definitely be a challenge for us. Spa isn’t exactly the easiest of tracks in the first place. The multi-class traffic will play a big role again, obviously, but also strategy and being able to keep concentration levels high.”, explained Fischer.
As one of the new regulations of the series, there will be a tire set limit per team. Over the course of the race, each team is granted only a maximum of eight tire sets.
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© 2020 Fischer Motorsport
Teaming up to compete for the GT AM championship this year, Nathan Manning and Benjamin Fischer will drive the No. 385 Porsche 991 RSR GTE
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“Tires will be super important this weekend. Eight sets aren’t a whole lot for a twelve-hour race, honestly.”, Fischer added.
“In Spa, we have got a lot of fast corners that like to eat up tires quite a bit, although there are tracks that eat up tires even worse. So yeah, we’ll definitely have a challenge on our hands. But I’m quite optimistic. We’ll be well prepared. In the past, we have benefited quite often, when it came down to managing the tires.”
With this strong optimism at hand, Fischer Motorsport enters the season-opening weekend of the IVRA Endurance Series, looking to build on a very successful campaign last year.
The iRacing eSports Network will broadcast the full event, from start to finish on YouTube. Both Fischer Motorsport cars will also provide an onboard live stream each, that allows fans to catch all the racing action live, first-hand.