Spa 24 Hours car race to take place in Belgium this weekend with the participation of the Russian team SMP Racing. Test and qualifying races will be held on July 25 and 26, …

Russia will take part in the Belgian auto marathon 24 Hours of Spa

Test and qualifying races will be held on July 25 and 26, and after – on July 27 and 28 – the race itself will begin. All the action will take place on the track in the Belgian city of Spa. Russia will be represented by three crews, one of which will be pilot Anton Ladygin, who was successful at the European Cup in the touring car class. However, Anton will perform for the first time as a Ferrari 458 Italia pilot.

The program created by SMP Racing is designed to develop the career of Russian pilots and promote them on the world stage. Boris Rottenberg, a member of the board of directors of SMP Bank, noted that initially the idea was to create a system for training fast pilots of any age, as well as a single coaching council that obeys sports principles.

Our main and unconditional priority is to bring Russian pilots to the highest level competitions, said a member of the Board of Directors of SMP Bank.

SMP Racing as a program started in 2012, personally supported by Boris Rottenberg. Many pilots of SMP Racing are not even 18 years old. To date, SMP Racing is actively developing and is already represented in world series from karting to Formula Renault 3.5. Touring car championships where the program is represented include BLANCPAIN, GT Open, ETCC and ELMS.

The first Spa 24 Hours car marathon took place in 1924, a year after the Le Mans race, making the Spa 24 Hours one of the oldest car races in the history of the sport.