Stuttgart Motorsport keeps winning streak after Chevrolet Absoluta 500 triumph


The competitors tried to apply some resistance and there were a lot of yellow flags in the Chevrolet Absoluta 500 at Interlagos this Sunday (31), but neither of these factors seemed to pose a threat to another great win of the No. 20 Stuttgart Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Marcel Visconde and Ricardo Maurício, again in a flawless race while all sorts of problems hit the possible contenders.

As the green flag was waved the No. 20 Stuttgart Porsche secured the lead from where it started, opening a comfortable margin to the No. 65 NC Racing MRX, which had its problems as Nilson Ribeiro was dealing with Tiel de Andrade in the No. 05 MC Tubarão IX and with Emilio Padron in the No. 117 Padron MR18.

The No. 20 was way ahead the competition with 45 seconds ahead of the No. 117, but with 20 minutes of racing the No. 25 Absoluta Stock Car stopped at the back straight and brought the first Safety Car intervention, with the caution during about ten minutes. The car got back on track after a few moments, but then multiple cars spun and stopped at different points of the circuit, which brought another yellow flag. While that MC Tubarão had its woes with the No. 64 BMW retiring with problems while a punctured water hose halted the progress of the No. 05 MC Tubarão IX.


The first hour ended behind the Safety Car but the green came right after, with the No. 110 DTR MR18 took the lead from the Porsche and Eduardo Dieter charged hard to leave the pack behind. Unfortunately another yellow flag was brought with an hour and 20 minutes as the engine of the No. 71 SATTI Racing MCR let Ian Jepsen Ely down and the car stopped at the end of the Curva do Sol.

It took 15 minutes to clear the track for the green flag, and in the restart the No. 110 just kept going without any threats for a long time, ending the second hour on the lead, but further checks in the car took big time that made it lose the lead to the No. 20 Stuttgart Porsche. Another candidate for the win came to a halt as the No. 117 Padron MR18 stopped and retired, with the No. 110 DTR MR18 stopping some minutes later with the No. 65 NC Racing MRX taking second place, although with a huge gap to deal with.

If the lack of natural light wasn't enough of a problem as the night approached, some dubious driving standards took good entries out between collisions, spins and off-track excursions, like the No. 44 MRX, the No. 155 Ferrari and the No. 17 Mottin Stock Car.

The race then followed straight on green flag until the Lap 98 when the Safety Car got back to track again, staying for a good number of laps, and in the Lap 104 the race was ended earlier as lack of illumination for marshaling duties made it too unsafe to continue, leaving things as it was and giving the win to the No. 20 Porsche. The No. 65 NC Racing MRX of Nilson and José finished second despite a late time penalty due to pit stop time infringement, and the overall and GP1 class podiums were completed by the No. 31 Mottin Lamborghini of Marcelo Sant'Anna, William Freire and Sergio Laganá.

P2 class honors stayed with the No. 172 MRX of Yuri and Carlos Antunes, holding off the No. 75 MRX of Henrique Assunção and Fernando Ohashi in an incredibly consistent performance, enough to place them in an overall top-5 finish, with the third in class No. 32 MC Tubarão of Mauro Kern an Paulo Sousa staying just outside the overall top spots.

Chevrolet Absoluta 500 – Overall Results


MC Tubarão took the P3 class win with the No. 69 car driven by Julio Martini and Marcelo Vianna, while in GT1 the No. 46 Lamborghini was the winner.


The Dopamina Endurance takes now a stop of three weeks and then goes down south again as the next round will be the 3 Hours of Santa Cruz do Sul on August 19th.

PHOTOS: DTR Motorsport, Endurance Brasil/Bruno Terena

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