Nurburgring Endurance Series racer Brett Lidsey has graduated to GT4-level action ahead of this coming weekend’s opening round of the 2021 season after agreeing a revised deal with Sorg Rennsport to step-up into the team’s BMW M4 GT4 car.
Following the cancellation of the scheduled first race of the year at the Nurburgring-Nordschleife just under three weeks ago as a result of snowfall at the German track, Lidsey entered into fresh discussions with Sorg to move-up from his Cup 5 class campaign due to a low number of entries.
Thanks to the unstinting support of sponsors Liftout, Dornack, GPL Projects Ltd and Certus Security, the 29-year-old from Northfleet in Kent has been able to agree a deal to move up to GT4-level in the multi-manufacturer SP10 class where he will still be partnered by Russian team-mate Ivan Berets.
In order to secure the GT4 move, though, Lidsey’s available budget means he will have to forego the Friday test days at each of the eight race meetings between now and October – which means he will go into qualifying this Saturday, 17th April, somewhat on the backfoot.
Having never driven a GT4 specification car before, the Cup 5 class podium finisher will have plenty to get to grips with during just a handful of laps in qualifying for the championship curtain-raiser. He is, though, absolutely relishing the new challenge.
“It’s going to be a big learning curve for both me and Ivan”, said Lidsey, “We don’t have many laps at all to get adjusted to the GT4 car on Saturday and with last month’s race having been cancelled, we haven’t had much time on track at all at the Nordschleife since last August! It’s a big challenge but it is one I’m really looking forward to and I’m delighted to be making the move into GT4.
“We’re going into the weekend using it as a test round really, we obviously don’t have any experience with the car but we’ll be doing the very best we can and build from there as the season moves on. It’s fantastic to be able to step-up into a higher class, but we are still in discussion with a couple of potential sponsors as we need to work hard with the finances to complete the season.”
Lidsey and Berets’ last race in the Nurburgring Endurance Series remains the final outing of 2020 last summer when they, and Moran Gott, scorched to a fantastic second place finish in Cup 5 at the wheel of their BMW M240i.
Unlike Cup 5, which is exclusively for identical BMW M2 cars, the SP10 class features a variety of FIA and SRO [Stephane Ratel Organisation] homologated GT4 specification cars from a range of marques including Aston Martin, Mercedes-AMG, Porsche and Alpine.
Qualifying for the opening round of the 2021 Nurburgring Endurance Series, the 45th NIMEX DMV 4-Stunden-Rennen, will get underway at 07.30 (UK time) this coming Saturday with the four-hour race itself following at 11.00 (UK time).
Live streaming of the action will be available online HERE