Jerome Policand’s AKKA ASP outfit have added a further entry for this weekend’s Blancpain GT Series season-opener at Zolder, bolstering the grid for the Belgian event to 22 cars.
The French team had already confirmed a trio of cars for the Zolder contest, which kicks off the 2018 campaign with a brace of Sprint Cup races.
AKKA ASP have now announced that they will add a fourth Mercedes-AMG GT3, which will run under the SMP Racing banner. Russian duo Vladimir Atoev and Alexey Korneev will share driving duties aboard the #35 machine, which will compete for Silver Cup honours.
This will be one of two Silver Cup efforts fielded by AKKA ASP at Zolder, with Jack Manchester and Nico Bastian also in the hunt for class honours aboard their full-season #90 Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The team’s Pro line-up sees Raffaele Marciello and Michael Meadows sharing the #88, while Nicolas Jamin and Felix Serralles will handle the #87.
The addition of an SMP-backed car in the Sprint Cup expands AKKA ASP’s relationship with the Russian squad. They will also team up in the Endurance Cup, fielding a Pro-class car for Meadows, Vitaly Petrov and Denis Bulatov.