Buhk to make BES return after case dropped

Maximilian Buhk will return to the Blancpain Sprint Series at the Algarve circuit this weekend after the case against him by the German sporting authority was dropped.

HTP Mercedes driver Buhk was forced to miss the Slovakia Ring BSS round last month after his license was suspended by the DMSB in the wake of an incident during a round of the ADAC GT Masters series at the same venue earlier in August.

Buhk was due to be called to a tribunal this week, but HTP received notification yesterday that the case against Buhk was being dropped.

The 21-year-old will now take up his place alongside Maximilian Gotz in the lead HTP Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG at Algarve.

The points scored by Gotz at the Slovakia Ring, when he was partnered by Nico Verdonck, mean that he now leads his teammate by 16 points in the standings.

Buhk still leads the overall Blancpain GT Series points, which combines the results in the BSS and the Blancpain Endurance Series. He leads WRT Audi driver Laurens Vanthoor and Gotz, who is not a regular competitor in the BES, by five and six points respectively.

OTHER BSS ENTRY CHANGES

WRT will remain at four cars for the remainder of the season after its split with G-Drive and Roman Rusinov.

ADAC Masters regular Fabian Hamprecht continues alongside Stephane Ortelli in the former G-Drive entry in Portugal, but the Belgian team will have another young driver for the final two rounds at Zolder and Baku in October and November, respectively.

Rusinov has now switched to the Reiter Engineering squad, which will field a Lamborghini Gallardo FLII in Portugal and at Zolder in October for himself and team regular Tomas Enge.

Plans for a joint venture between the Virtuosi UK and Comtec teams to put a Nissan GT-R NISMO on the grid for the Algarve BSS round have been delayed. They are now aiming for a debut for the programme at the Blancpain Endurance Series finale at the Nurburgring on Sept. 21 and an outing at the Zolder BSS event.

Virtuosi boss Andy Roche said: "We are aiming for the Nurburgring and then Zolder; it could be both or one or the other."

The grid for this weekend's BSS round is bolstered by two entries running in the Pro-Am class from the local Sports & You Mercedes team.