Paul Ricard Wednesday Notebook

***The 2015-spec Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 posted the fastest time in yesterday’s Balance of Performance test. The time was set by Christophe Bouchut, while Jean-Marc Gounon also carried out test runs.

***Forty four cars are officially taking part in the Blancpain Endurance Series test days at Paul Ricard. The entry list can be found here. The new Audi R8 LMS ultra wasn’t officially entered, but ran a handful of laps this morning with Laurens Vanthoor behind the wheel. Its fastest lap was 2.749 seconds off the pace set by the Reiter Lamborghini this morning. The car was indeed running on Pirelli rubber.

***Maxime Martin is in the Paul Ricard paddock. The BMW factory driver is helping out the Boutsen Ginion squad in finding a good setup. The Belgian team will enter the car for Karim Ojjeh and Olivier Grotz, but is also negotiating with other drivers for a possible second entry.

***Attempto Racing is testing with two Porsche 997 GT3-Rs at Paul Ricard this week, but is only planning on entering one or two of the cars in the GT Sports Club, a new SRO-organized series aimed specifically at Gentlemen drivers.

***The German Porsche specialists will switch to the brand-new McLaren 650S GT3 for the Blancpain GT Series. Contrary to what’s indicated on the entry list for the Blancpain Sprint Series, the team will not enter the older MP4-12C GT3s but indeed the same 650S GT3s that will race in the Endurance Series.

***After a trouble-free morning session, the second session started of with a crash of the No. 333 Rinaldi Ferrari 458 Italia on the front straight.

***Hari Proczyk will not return to the Blancpain Sprint Series this season. Next to Jeroen Bleekemolen the Austrian was one of the surprises last year on one of the Grasser Racing Team Lamborghinis. Proczyk is working on a program in the German ADAC GT Masters with the updated Reiter Gallardo Extenso.