AF Corse made history in the GT World Challenge Europe by winning a hard fought Paul Ricard 1000 and getting the first Endurance Cup title in the Pro Cup for both Ferrari and the team itself, with the pracing horse having SMP Racing as the champion team, while favorites AKKA-ASP only got the GT World Challenge Europe drivers title with Timur Boguslavskiy after a terrible day at home.
Alessandro Pier Guidi was crowned champion thanks to his own effort with the company of Tom Blomqvist and Côme Ledogar in the No. 51 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo.
The race start was under a cloudy sky but there wasn’t any chance of immediate rain, with a Ferrari 1-2 led by the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari with the No. 72 SMP Ferrari behind, although the No. 163 Emil Frey Lamborghini quickly split them and then jumped into the lead.
The Ferraris eventually lost more terrain before the end of the first hour, opening the way for other cars to come by and fight the leading spots, and after the first service window, the No. 163 Emil Frey Lamborghini was still topping the field. The fact is that during the course of the second hour the No. 163 lost pace too, leaving the lead to the No. 12 GPX Porsche with the No. 32 WRT Audi joining in.
Even with the second pit window being under yellow flag the order wasn’t altered. Way behind the No. 88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes was managing to stay within the top-10 for its title bid, but a slightly broken splitter hindered them near the halfway mark, throwing it way out of the points scoring zone.
The No. 12 GPX Porsche kept the lead without threats in the third hour, though the positions below had some change in them, with the No. 51 AF Corse coming back to second and the No. 63 FFF Lamborghini appearing as a victory contender in third. Good pitwork in the final pit window turned the tables in favor of the No. 51 but the No. 12 was still around, and despite the effort to do another turnaround, the No. 51 Ferrari kept the first place firmly until the checkered flag to conquer a hard fought Endurance Cup title.
Paul Ricard 1000 - Race result
In the Silver Cup, it appeared the No. 15 Tech1 Lexus would dominate according to the first hours of racing, but the French team went into trouble halfway and practically gave the class win to the No. 78 Barwell Lamborghini, which managed its lead until the finish. The No. 77 Barwell Lamborghini could have followed the steps of the Silver Cup entry in the Pro-Am Cup, but the No. 188 Garage59 Aston Martin beat the British GT powerhouse to get the class win. A safe run for the No. 108 CMR Bentley secured the Am Cup win at home, saving the day for the local squads.
Despite not scoring points due to the terrible run of the No. 88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes, Timur Boguslavskiy conquered the overall GT World Challenge Europe title by 9 points over Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor, though the Russian lost the Endurance Cup title to Alessandro Pier Guidi, who scored 79 points against 65 of Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Patrick Pilet. AKKA-ASP also saw WRT and SMP Racing steal from them the teams titles of GT World Challenge Europe and of the Endurance Cup, respectively.
Ezequiel Perez Companc and Madpanda Motorsport crowned the team’s debut season with the Silver Cup drivers and teams titles in GT World Challenge Europe, while Barwell Motorsport, Frederik Schandorff, Alex MacDowall and Patrick Kujala got the class trophies in the Endurance Cup.
SKY Tempesta Racing failed in getting a Pro-Am Cup sweep as Garage59, Chris Goodwin and Alexander West lifted the Endurance Cup titles, but SKY Tempesta still had a lot to celebrate by having the class GTWC Europe titles in addition to their Sprint Cup ones.
PHOTOS: SRO/Dirk Bogaerts
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