Rougier Replaces Injured Aitken for Brands Hatch Sprint Round

Arthur Rougier has replaced Emil Frey Racing’s Jack Aitken for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup round at Brands Hatch as the British-Korean driver continues his recovery from injuries sustained in a crash just over three weeks ago.

Aitken suffered a broken collarbone, fractured vertebrae and a small lung contusion after his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo was struck by teammate Franck Perera as part of a major four-car accident in the early stages of the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa.

The Williams Formula One test driver was taken to a nearby hospital in Belgium and has since returned to the UK to continue his recuperation.

A statement from the Emil Frey Racing team said that Aitken will be “skipping the next few race weekends until he’s fully recovered.”

The GTWC Europe Endurance Cup series, which Aitken also competes in, will be in action at the Nürburgring next weekend.

Emil Frey Racing Endurance Cup regular Rougier will team up with Aitken’s full-season Sprint Cup co-driver Konsta Lappalainen for the Sunday doubleheader at Brands Hatch.

Their No. 114 Lamborghini will compete in the Silver Cup class, whereas it usually races in Pro with Aitken behind the wheel.

Rougier has already made one Sprint appearance this year at Magny-Cours, where he was drafted into the Emil Frey crew at short notice after Norbert Siedler was ruled out following a crash during practice.

Siedler, who also missed Spa due to his recovery after a separate accident at the official test days, is back in Emil Frey Racing’s GTWC Europe crew for the next Sprint event.

The Austrian is teaming up with Albert Costa in the No. 163 Lamborghini, while Silver Cup points leaders Alex Fontana and Ricardo Feller remain in the No. 14 machine.

The other big change on the 29-car Brands Hatch entry list is the absence of the Dinamic Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 driven by Christian Engelhart and Adrian de Leener.

That withdrawal has been offset by the arrival of RAM Racing which is making a one-off appearance with a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo for Adam Christodoulou and Kevin Tse.

Porsche will continue to be represented on the grid by the Pro-Am car from Allied-Racing, which made its Sprint Cup debut last time out in round three at Misano.

SPS Automotive Performance is back down to one Mercedes-AMG entry after the Germany squad brought an additional Silver Cup entry to Italy.

Audi factory driver Mattia Drudi will return to the Sprint Cup grid after contesting the first two events. The Italian is sharing the No. 66 Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo with Max Hofer, after Christopher Mies and Fabien Lavergne drove it at Misano.

Team WRT’s Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts lead the Sprint Cup overall standings by 28.5 points over AKKA-ASP duo Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy.

The championship’s last visit to Brands Hatch in 2019 marked a double victory for Luca Stolz and Maro Engel, who are driving a Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG this weekend.