Expanding teams boost Blancpain GT grids for the 2015 season

Series promoter, the Stephane Ratel Organisation announced last week that the entry for the five-round BES would top 50 cars, but additional cars from teams already committed to the championship has brought that number up to 56 ahead of the opening round at Monza on April 12.

The increased entry, which is up from the 44 cars that registered for last year's BES, includes 23 cars in the Pro Cup.

Ratel told AUTOSPORT: "The increase isn't really from new entrants, just teams with one car deciding to do two or teams with two going for three.

"We have got two more cars in Pro than we expected: 23 cars is amazing and I challenge anyone to find better competition between so many manufacturers with so many professional drivers."

The official entry list for the sister Blancpain Sprint Series shows 21 cars, but Ratel said he was expecting to confirm an additional "one or two" full-season entries ahead of the season-opener at Nogaro on April 6.

"The target was 24, which is where we really finished last year, but I'm not unhappy because we should reach that figure with the extra cars and race-by-race entries," he explained.

Nine teams are racing across the BES and the BSS, which together make up the Blancpain GT Series.

That will allow them to claim the full prize money on offer: teams competing in only one of the series are awarded only 50 percent of the total available.

There are a total of 46 cars present for the official BES test days at Paul Ricard today (Thursday) and tomorrow.