In what can be described as a chaotic race, FFF Racing by ACM emerged victorious of the Barcelona finale of the 2019 Blancpain GT Series season, and along with the win of the No. 563 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo, came the Blancpain GT Series and Blancpain GT Endurance Cup titles, crowning a good year by the Chinese team with a full sweep in Europe.
The spectacular start saw the No. 563 FFF Lamborghini win a 3-wide drag race to Turns 1 and 2 from the No. 4 Black Falcon Mercedes and the No. 98 ROWE Porsche, but the action lasted only some corners as the No. 52 AF Corse stopped on gravel and the No. 54 Dinamic Porsche went straight to a heavy hit in the barriers, with driver Zaid Ashkanani walking away from it. Further analysis from the start made the No. 563 be penalized by giving away the first and second places.
When the field was preparing to go green after 40 minutes of Safety Car, the No. 25 Sainteloc Audi suffers an engine failure and stops at Turn 9, delaying the process and sending the cars back to Yellow Flag procedure. Ten minutes later the green flag was waved but everybody thought on prudence first as it was time for the first pit window.
The initial pit window had the top three stopping at the same time, but the No. 563 outsmarted the ROWE Racing crew and jumped to second while the No. 4 was still leading. In between some Full Course Yellow periods, the No. 563 was able to find a gap and pass by force the No. 4, and the race fell on the hands of the title contenders as the No. 98 ROWE Porsche was penalized for a pit exit infringement.
At a given point the No. 4 was fighting to defend from the third placed No. 88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes more than trying to attack the No. 563, and although another Yellow Flag bunched up the field, the No. 4 was still in defensive mode as the No. 519 FFF Lamborghini was coming to attack, though some track occupation kept the No. 4 on its position.
Hell was breaking loose in the midfield during the final hour, so much that the Pro-Am Cup was without title contenders on track at a given point. The pack of Safety Car periods kept the field close, and this had implications for the No. 4 Black Falcon Mercedes, as the third placed No. 2 WRT Audi came in too aggressive, and although the No. 4 came back, it was totally eliminated from the title race, with the No. 2 coming to a halt. The biggest winner in all this mess was the No. 563 FFF Lamborghini, not seeing any nearby threats to its way to victory.
The No. 90 AKKA-ASP Mercedes conquered the Silver Cup win, while in the Pro-Am Cup, with all title contenders being wiped out, the No. 26 Sainteloc Audi emerged victorious, and the No. 29 Raton by Target Lamborghini made a survival race for the Am Cup win.
Marco Mapelli and Andrea Caldarelli left Barcelona with the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup and the overall Blancpain GT Series titles, keeping FFF Racing on a streak since the Blancpain GT Asia title conquered in 2018, and completing the full sweep in Europe, which also includes the team titles.
AKKA-ASP’s Timur Boguslavskiy, Nico Bastian and Felipe Fraga were the Endurance Cup Silver champions while Bastian was the overall series champion, with AKKA-ASP also getting the Silver Cup titles in both series.
With no regular entries for the whole series, the Am Cup had only the Endurance Cup titles at stake, which went for Barwell Motorsport, Adrian Amstutz and Leo Machitski.
PHOTO - Dirk Bogaerts/SRO
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