Moscow Blancpain Grid Reduced to 18 Entries

While the Blancpain Sprint Series initially looked set for its biggest grid of the year at the Moscow Raceway this weekend, the withdrawal of all three SMP Racing Ferraris and ISR’s second Audi means the number of entries remains at 18.

ENTRY LIST: Moscow Raceway

SMP Racing has forfeited all three Ferrari 458 Italias that were set for a one-off appearance in the Russian round of the series.

The Russian team announced its intentions only two weeks ago, already confirming the presence of Andrea Bertolini, Mikhail Aleshin, Victor Shaytar and Kirill Ladygin in its lineup.

Meanwhile, ISR will leave the Silver Cup entered Audi for the Danish Fjordbach brothers at home, fielding only the No. 75 Audi for Marco Bonanomi and Filip Salaquarda.

Attempto Racing has replaced one of its McLaren 650S GT3 with a Porsche 911 GT3-R, to be raced by the Ukrainian-Russian duo Sergej Chukanov and Ivan Samarin in the Pro-Am Cup.

The addition of a Porsche to the grid brings the number of brands represented in the series back up to nine.

As previously announced, Nissan GT Academy Team RJN will field a GT-R for 2014 GT Academy North America winner Nic Hammann and Mark Shulzhitskiy.

Nick Catsburg (Reiter Engineering) and Christophe Bouchut (GT Russian) both return to the series this weekend, while Max Van Splunteren will make his debut with Bentley Team HTP.

The weekend will feature a packed schedule, with Qualifying Practice, Qualifying Race and Main Race all taking place on one day.

The event, originally scheduled to be held on the streets around Moscow University, was moved to Russia’s first international-grade circuit due to last minute construction work around the planned site.