Former Blancpain Endurance Cup racer Sean Walkinshaw is absolutely relishing his return to the world-renowned Total 24 Hours of Spa next weekend, 28th/29th July, where the Oxfordshire driver will link back up with top team RJN Motorsport for the biggest GT3 race on the globe.
Walkinshaw, who is currently challenging for the GT300 title in the Super GT Championship in the Far East with Autobacs Racing Team Aguri, has been drafted in by Didcot’s RJN for round four of the Blancpain season where he will partner Struan Moore, Jordan Witt and Ricardo Sanchez.
Running in the highly competitive Silver Cup class, the talented quartet will share driving duties at the wheel of the No.22 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 – the same model of car in which Chipping Norton-based Walkinshaw began his GT3 endurance racing career back in 2015.
Thrilled to have the opportunity to contest the Total 24 Hours of Spa for the third time, the 70th anniversary race will also see Walkinshaw and Sanchez reunited under the GT Sport MOTUL Team RJN umbrella. The duo raced together for the squad in 2016 in the sister Blancpain Sprint Cup.
“I’m delighted to be back racing at Spa next weekend in the 24 Hour race, it really is the biggest and best GT3 race in the world – the crown jewel really – and I’m looking forward to working with the RJN guys once again”, said 24-year-old Walkinshaw.
“We’ve got a competitive line-up and a great car in the Nissan, it’s going to be a lot of fun racing the GT-R NISMO again, the car I started my GT3 career in, and hopefully we can have a very competitive weekend. The main aim, of course, is to do the best job possible for the team to help Struan, Jordan and Ricardo take away some big points for their Silver Cup championship.”
After the previous Super GT race in Thailand at the beginning of July, Walkinshaw flew direct to Belgium – his country of birth – for the official Total 24 Hours of Spa test day where he got behind the wheel of a Nissan GT-R for the first time in roughly 20 months.
During his last outing in the world-renowned spectacular in 2016, Walkinshaw and then team-mates Sanchez, Romain Sarazin and Matt Simmons finished 13th in the Pro-Am class. The quartet were on course to challenge for a points finish but an unfortunate electrical problem during the night-time hours thwarted that bid.
Following the traditional parade of race cars into Spa city centre on Wednesday, 25th July, free practice, pre-qualifying, qualifying and night practice will all take place on Thursday, 26th July, ahead of Super-Pole on Friday, 27th July.
The Total 24 Hours of Spa itself, the 70th staging of the great race, will then commence at 16.30 (local time) on Saturday, 28th July.