Weekend Superstars: Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Sims

While it may not of been the traditional Easter weekend start, the Blancpain GT Sprint Series returned this weekend at Misano and the racing was better than ever. New cars, new teams and new drivers as well as former Blancpain champions, a DTM champion, former Formula One drivers and various talented youngsters meant the racing was absolutely fantastic and there was a myriad of battles throughout the field. Across the weekend there was a number of impressive performance from several drivers, here are the two performances I though were worthy of being weekend superstars.

Alexander Sims: Anyone who follows the British GT Championship will know Alexander Sims very well considering that he has finished third and second in the drivers' standings in his two years of the sport. Despite being an official factory BMW driver, Sims has never had the chance to shine in international GT championships, mainly because he has always been part of a Pro-AM driver line-up. But for the 2016 Blancpain GT Sprint Series, he has a pro teammate in Philip Eng and it's already proved to be a fantastic combination. A good decision to start on slick tyres in the qualifying race came to fruition when a full course yellow was called just as Sims pitted to change tyres and driver. This gained the pair forty seconds and this resulted in a second place finish in their first race with the new car. In the main race Sims would once again find himself involved in a raging battle, this time with Felix Rosenqvist in his AKKA ASP Mercedes. The Brit gave a master class in how to defend and managed to keep the charging Swede at bay for most of the second half of the race. The defence was clean and fair but also very hard and Sims never gave an inch of space more than he needed to. This masterful job of defence is why Sims is my first weekend superstar of the year.

Felix Rosenqvist: The Swede had never raced a GT3 car before the qualifying race on Saturday night, but this certainly wasn't represented in his driving. Rosenqvist was one of the fastest drivers on circuit this weekend, often matching or bettering drivers like Laurens Vanthoor, Robin Frijns and Maxi Buhk, all while making his GT début in a car that's brand new for 2016, the Mercedes AMG Gt GT3 (That's quite a mouthful isn't it?). He managed to keep up with triple GT champion Maxi Buhk, who was also driving the new Mercedes but for a different team, almost but not quite managing to pass the German in race one. The main though was where Rosenqvist really impressed, managing to set the fastest lap and close up a gap of over five seconds to Alexander Sims. Despite Sims' aforementioned excellent defence, the Swede eventually found his way past with a fantastic move at turn eight, arguably the move of the weekend. Unfortunately, a mechanical problem with just one minute remaining would prevent the Swede and his teammate ,Tristan Voutier, from scoring. Considering that this was the first weekend in GT racing for Rosenqvist, to be on the pace of former champions in incredibly impressive and he should only get better in future races. Rosenqvist definitely deserves to be a weekend superstar from Misano.

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