Blancpain GT: Buhk joins factory Bentley team

Former Blancpain Endurance Series title winner Maximilian Buhk is joining the M-Sport factory Bentley for an assault on the championship this year. The German, who won the 2013 BES title, will race the second works M-Sport Continental GT3 in the five enduros in addition to an assault on the Blancpain Sprint Series at the wheel of a Bentley run by the German HTP team.

Buhk will join former Formula 2 champion Andy Soucek, a frontrunner in the BES last year with the ART McLaren team, and Belgian GT racer Maxime Soulet in the #8 Bentley in place of Duncan Tappy, Jerome d'Ambrosio and Antoine Leclerc.

Bentley has confirmed that its lead trio of Stephen Kane, Guy Smith and Andy Meyrick have been retained for the new season. Bentley motorsport boss Brian Gush explained that he wanted to "mix it up a bit and put a bit of pressure on Mr. Kane and the boys."

"We tested a lot of guys at Portimao, came back with a lot of data, and made our decision on the basis of that," he said. "Maximilian was very impressive, very quick, and with a lot of front-engined experience with the Mercedes [which HTP Motorsport formerly ran], he will be able to give us a lot feedback."

M-Sport has yet to announce its driver lineup for the first event on its 2015 schedule, the Bathurst 12 Hours on Feb. 7-8. The rules demand that each car lineup must have one silver-rated driver, which will preclude M-Sport running all six of its regular BES racers.

"We've got an idea of the silvers we want to run, but we haven't tied down the contracts yet," Gush explained.