BES: Premat returns to ART McLaren lineup

Former Audi factory driver Alexandre Premat will return to the ART Grand Prix McLaren team for this weekend's Nurburgring Blancpain Endurance Series finale.

Premat, who raced for Audi in both LMP1 and the DTM, has been brought back to drive the #98 ART McLaren MP4-12C in which he won the opening round of the series at Monza and also drove in round two at Silverstone.

The Frenchman takes the place of Nicolas Lapierre, who was brought in to share with Alvaro Parente and Gregoire Demoustier at the Paul Ricard and Spa 24 Hours BES rounds, but is unavailable for this weekend because he is racing for Toyota in the Austin World Endurance Championship round.

ART boss Frederic Vasseur explained that it was always the intention for Premat to return to the lineup.

"Nicolas could not do the opening rounds because of his testing commitments with Toyota, so it was always the plan that they would share the drive," he said.

Parente and Demoustier are one of six driver combinations still in mathematical contention for the overall Pro Cup title heading into the Nurburgring event, for which 33 points are available for the winners. WRT Audi driver Laurens Vanthoor, who is back with regular teammates Marc Basseng and Cesar Ramos after winning Spa with Rene Rast and Markus Winkelhock, leads the standings alone. The Belgian has a seven-point advantage over the Sainteloc Audi trio of Stephane Ortelli, Edward Sandstrom and Gregory Guilvert.

M-Sport Bentley drivers Guy Smith, Steven Kane and Andy Meyrick, winners of the Silverstone and Ricard rounds, are 15 points off the championship lead, while Parente and Demoustier are a further 10 points behind.

HTP Mercedes drivers Nico Verdonck and Harold Primat and the WRT Audi trio Frank Stippler, Christopher Mies and James Nash also have outside chances of the title.