AKKA-ASP wins on Sunday and gets Blancpain GT Sprint drivers title

Turnaround was the name of the game in the second race of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup weekend at Nürburgring, and AKKA-ASP got the better end of it with the No. 88 Mercedes AMG GT3 of Raffaele Marciello and Michael Meadows getting the win and the drivers title, piling up in the misery of the favorite No. 1 WRT Audi R8 LMS of Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas.

Departing from the top row, the mission for the No. 88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes was to win at all costs, but Raffaele Marciello was left with the second place while the No. 6 Black Falcon Mercedes was in the lead and the No. 1 WRT Audi was in ninth.

The No. 88 kept chasing the No. 6 for the whole first stint while the No. 1 kept recovering ground, though the progress stalled in 7^th place. The solution for the No. 88 was to rely on pit work, which in fact worked very well as it took the lead, and came into an important moment with the No. 1 WRT Audi jumping to fifth and closing into the No. 66 Attempto Audi.

With the No. 88 in the lead, it was a race against time for the No. 1 to go up in the table, though it was still stuck behind the No. 66, but in the final minutes Alex Riberas got desperate, tried a few moves into the No. 66 but Steijn Schothorst kept the defence as hard as possible, and in the end not only the No. 66 kept the fourth position, but the No. 19 GRT Lamborghini went to fifth and the No. 1 ended in the gravel, going back to track but retiring a while later.

With the title rival out of contention and the No. 6 opting to not interfere, Michael Meadows just had to keep the No. 88 going to receive the checkered flag first. Although finishing second, the No. 6 still scored a Silver Cup win with a good margin to the opponents.

Blancpain GT Series - Nürburgring Race 2 results

Marciello and Meadows ended with the title with 98 points, while Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas stayed with 90.5 points, so the No. 88 duo got a debut title for AKKA-ASP and the second for a Mercedes team, as Maximilian Götz conquered the 2014 drivers title.

Saintéloc got everything they could this Sunday as Pro-Am Cup drivers and teams titles stayed with them, Markus Winkelhock and Nyls Stievenart, while the No. 333 Rinaldi Ferrari conquered the Race 2 Pro-Am win.

Now the Blancpain GT Series season just has the Endurance Cup race at Barcelona to wrap up the season, which will be held on September 30^th.

PHOTO: AKKA-ASP