Next weekend tough work is waiting for Fabian Schiller at a place where people ususally go on vacation. The 20-year-old driver from Troisdorf is going to start at the sixth race of the Blancpain GT Series on the Circuit Paul Picard on the border of the Southern French small town Le Castellet, about 20 kilometers away from Bandol at the Côte d’Azur. The ten events of the 2017 season are divided into five sprint- and five long distance races. At the last race in Belgian Zolder, there were two races of one hour each – now the drivers in France have to drive a marathon of six hours. As an additional highlight, the “1000 kilometers of Paul Ricard” are going to take place as a night race. The start is going to be on Saturday at 6pm and the participants are going to cross the finish line a little after midnight.

Fabian Schiller can be absolutely content with his performance this season so far. The driver born in Bonn always showed his potential due to impressive lap times on tracks already known to him as well as new ones. At half-time, he is therefore leading the Silver Cup for young drivers with a considerable advance together with his Dutch team mate Jules Szymkowiak. Everything is going to be reset for the upcoming race of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup though, because the long distance races of the popular European sports car series have their own ranking and the drivers-teams are going to be mixed anew. Schiller is still going to drive in the HTP-Mercedes with starting number 85, but this time he has to change seats with Austrian Dominik Baumann and Swede Edward Sandström in the more than 550HP strong 6,3l-V8-car.

The six-hour-race poses a special challenge to the international trio not just because of its double length but also due to the extremely strong competition. The field of participants with cars like Aston Martin V12, Audi R8 LMS, Bentley Continental GT3, BMW M6, Ferrari F488, Jaguar G3, Lamborghini Huracan GT3, McLaren 650 S, Mercedes-AMG GT3, Nissan GT-R as well as Porsche 991 GT3-R comprises all big and internationally successful sports car designing engineers.

Fabian Schiller knows the Circuit Paul Ricard well, because the Rhinelander drove the races of the Renault Sport Trophy on this highly modern track last year and was announced Champion only a short time later. Between 1971 and 1990, the Formula 1 took place in Southern France and hosted the Grand Prix of France. Afterwards the whole area was rebuilt due to new security guidelines and used as a test track initially. Since 2006 numerous international automobile and motorcycle races take place in Le Castellet again and the Grand Prix-circus has announced their return to the Département Var for 2018. The track’s layout allows a lot of different variations due to transverse links. The Blancpain GT Series uses the entire track with a length of 5842m, which became popular mostly due to its 1,6km long mistral-straight, which has been eased due to a chicane by now.

“We already did joint test drives of the Blanpain-Series in Paul Ricard at the beginning of the year and did really well there. The track should be good for our car”, Fabian Schiller says confidently before the racing weekend. “The race is mainly a preparation for Spa-Francorchamps for our team, because the 24h-race there is the absolute highlight of the season. The race this Saturday is going to last into the night, but I think at least during the first few hours it’s going to be very hot. So this is a good dress rehearsal for Spa. The track is cool, I really like it. My team leader Norbert Brückner and I are optimistic and think we’re going to do well there and collect a couple of championship points.”

Text: F. Wagner / Schiller Motorsport – Fotos: Blancpain GT Series