Lorenzo Patrese Named In New Tresor By Car Collection Audi Effort for GT World Challenge Europe

Team Tresor and Team Car Collection Motorsport will join forces for the upcoming season in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.

The new combined team will run under the Italian flag and the ‘Tresor by Car Collection’ banner and will enter a pair of Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO 2 in the Sprint and Endurance Cup rounds including the TotalEnergies 24 hours of Spa.

At the Sprint events the team will enter both cars in the Pro Cup. At the Endurance events, which includes the 24 hours of Spa, Tresor by Car Collection will compete with 1 car in the Pro cup and with the sister car in the Silver Cup.

The youngest gun on the car for the Silver Cup is Lorenzo Patrese, son of former Formula 1 driver Riccardo Patrese. The 16-year-old Italian finished his first season in the Italian F4 championship on P3 in the Rookie classification in 2021. Now he makes the step into the GT racing after he impressed the team at test days at the end of last year.

Lorenzo Patrese: “I am extremely honored and excited to start this year. It is going to be a challenge as it is my first year in GT, but with the engineers and the team we will be giving the best. Can’t wait to start!”

Axel Blom from Finland is also a Rookie in GT racing. In 2021 he participated in the Porsche Sports Cup Swiss, started at the 12H Mugello and did a guest entry in the Lamborghini Supertrofeo. At the end of his first season in motorsport he took 3 podium finishes and ended up the championship on P2.

Axel Blom: “I am very excited to join Tresor by Car Collection in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. The championship is one of the toughest GT3-series and as a newcomer to GT I am looking forward to take on the challenge. We had a great test in Valencia last year and I immediately felt confident with the team. Can’t wait to start season 2022!”

Last but not least, the 2 young drivers got support from the experienced French driver Hugo Valente. After some years in the Single-seater he made the step into the WTCC and TCR cars. Now he comes back with driving the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO2.

Hugo Valente: “I’m overly excited and motivated to start racing again, after a few years out of the game, I truly missed the driving, the competition, the smell of a race track… I have spent some time training and staying active since I’ve been gone so I’m confident that after a few days of testing I will be back to my full capabilities. We have a strong package with the new Audi R8 GT3 LMS EVO2 and Tresor by Car Collection have put together a lovely project, I know they are an experienced team with all the right key people in the right spots and so I believe we can go fighting for some good results in the Silver cup. I’m really looking forward getting this season started and we will do our best for it to be a good one!”

The test programme for the team has already started and the team will announce the line up for the Pro cup at a later stage.