GruppeM Racing left the Buriram circuit in Thailand with lots of reasons to celebrate as the team got two class wins in the Race 2 of the second Blancpain GT Series Asia weekend, with the No. 888 Mercedes being driven to the checkered by Maximilian Buhk and Alexander Matschull.
The No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes had a tough mission at the start as it was holding place against the two HubAuto Ferraris, which Maximilian Buhk succeeded after half a lap. As for the GT4 class, the No. 666 GruppeM Mercedes had to deal again with the No. 81 Studie BMW in order to keep the class lead, blocking any opportunities for an overtake.
The initial pressure seen in the No. 888 was carried on by the No. 28 HubAuto Ferrari, though Maximilian Buhk was trying everything in his power to open the gap, while the No. 666 was consolidated in the GT4 lead as the No. 81 went straight to the Team Studie garage and retired.
The pit window didn’t promote any changes in the leaders as GruppeM was still dominating in GT3 and GT4, with their immediate competitors being various seconds behind.
The FFF Racing had second and third place in hand with its Lamborghinis, so the No. 63 gave place for the No. 19 and once it got second place, Dennis Lind pushed hard to close down the 14 second advantage of the No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes, but the Lamborghini took only 9 seconds out of that gap, so the No. 888 conquered the overall and Pro-Am Cup wins, while the No. 19 took Silver Cup honors.
The Am Cup was marked by contact around the track, so the No. 45 KCMG Audi only had to cross the finish line as it was the only entry racing from the class, while the No. 666 GruppeM Mercedes had a smooth race in the GT4 class, winning with more than 20 seconds to the No. 72 iRaceWin Mercedes.
The No. 19 FFF Lamborghini duo of Martin Kodric and Dennis Lind leads the standings with 54 points, followed by Patric Niederhauser with 50 and the No. 27 HubAuto Ferrari pair of Hongli Ye and Nick Foster with 48 points. GruppeM leads the teams standings with 115 points while FFF Racing has 88 and Absolute Racing has 75.
Reinhold Renger dominates the GT4 standings with 90 points against 64 of the iRaceWin pair of Ringo Chong and Gilles Vannelet and 60 of the CRAFT-Bamboo pair of Jean Marc Merlin and Frank Yu. The teams standings are a bit closer as GruppeM leads with 90 points against 76 of Team Studie.
The next destination of the series is Suzuka on June 30th and July 1st, starting a two leg Japanese trip during July.
PHOTO: SRO
Comments
Post a Comment
Do you have an opinion? Feel free to comment.