Team rhino's Leipert had a guest start with drivers Ronnie Bremer and Norman Knop at the two final races of the FIA GT3 European Championship at Zolder, Belgium, between 23 and 25 October 2009.

"This was the first ever use of an Ascari KZ1 R GT3 in the European Championship 2009", said Team Manager Ingo Leipert. "The point was to find out where we stand in the strong competition of the GT."

Bremer from Copenhagen and Knop from Willich kept improving during the free training sessions over 60 minutes each. At first, they raced at 1:34.711 minutes. In the second free training in the afternoon, the time was improved to 1:34.211 minutes which meant 11th place in both sessions. Despite trying a few further set-ups with the Michelin tyres - the composition of the latter was new to the team - first promising tendencies could be seen.

The qualifying continued well for the team. In both 20 minute-sessions, Ronnie Bremer reached
3rd best time, and Norman Knop got starting position 6. "Our expectations were exceeded by far. With this result, we were part of the top in the qualifying", explained Ingo Leipert. So, the aim for the races was a podium position.

In race 2 at Saturday lunchtime, Ronnie Bremer started on wet grounds with wet tyres. "We didn't have any experience with the European Championship composition of the Michelin wet tyres", said Team Manager Ingo Leipert. Bremer fell behind from 3rd to 11th place. At the pit stop, drives changed and slicks were put on. Norman Knop now drove fast laps and got 5th best lap time of the 23 drivers who went into the race on the 4,184 km long track. Unfortunately, they only managed a disappointing 13th place.

In race 2 on Sunday evening, Norman Knop was involved in many duels right from the start. After 20 minutes, the 21 year-old is unindeptedly involved in a collision. "I had a strange banging in the steering and we decided to check the car for safety reasons", Knop explained. This cost the team 3 rounds. When they re-entered the race, the race was basically over for the team and they only continued to finish the race. In his 520 PS Ascari KZ1 R GT3, Ronnie Bremer raced third fastest lap in the dark towards the end of the race, and they finished the final in 15th position.

Team Manager Ingo Leipert's résumé is as follows: "We immediately coped better than expected and could prove the competitiveness of our team, our cars and the drivers on European level. We could draw attention especially in the qualifying. Despite the disappointing results in both races, we can draw positive conclusions from this weekend. We have learned a lot from this first participation in a European Championship and our plans for a further participation next year in the European Championship 2010 have progressed. We would like to congratulate the new FIA GT3 European Champion Christopher Mies who has already won 3 titles together with Team rhino's Leipert as part of "rhino's junior squad" in the past years. The impressive development of Christopher shows that the junior programme of Leipert Motorsport and rhino's energy drink has been fruitful."