While strategy
dictated the Qualifying Race at Misano, domination was king in the
Main Race of the first round of the Blancpain
GT Sprint Cup, with Laurens
Vanthoor and Frederic
Vervisch guiding the No. 1 WRT
Audi R8 LMS to victory practically for
the whole 1 hour race.
The Main Race was on
and soon Maxime Soulet
saw his Bentley
in an uncomfortable situation as the ROWE
Racing BMW passed quickly and two WRT
Audis were in the pressure. Unfortunately the Bentley quest was
interrupted due to a contact that sent Soulet’s car to a spin.
While the pursuit
game between Philipp Eng
and Vervisch longed a bit, the other WRT Audi, the No. 4 one with
Dries Vanthoor in the drive, received a drive-through penalty for
causing a collision, putting the No. 84 HTP Mercedes as the official
outsider of the lead battle. With 15 minutes of racing, Vervisch got
tired of playing catch-up and started to attack as he was slightly
quicker than the BMW ahead of him. Eventually Vervisch got the room
to force his way into Eng, overtake and bring along Dominik
Baumann and his HTP Mercedes.
What was worrying
for the ROWE Racing camp was that the lead BMW was way slower that
its opponents, but the AKKA-ASP Mercedes
with Tristan Vautier
didn’t make any moves. The first of the frontrunners to go to its
pit stop was the HTP Mercedes,
as Maximilian Buhk
received the car to try to change the fortunes of the team in the
race. Then a lap later it was the time for WRT to work in the No. 1
car, as well for AKKA-ASP and the No. 88 Mercedes. Laurens Vanthoor
and Felix Rosenqvist received their cars with full service complete
and rejoined the track.
After the pit window
closed, Laurens Vanthoor had the control of the race, but a charging
Maximilian Buhk was only 5 seconds behind the Belgian. While Buhk was
trying to reach and almost impossible goal at that moment, the battle
for third place was still up and running with the No. 99 ROWE BMW
holding tightly its position against a charging Felix
Rosenqvist in the AKKA-ASP Mercedes.
Worth note was Bernd Schneider in the other HTP Mercedes, wse car
started last and was sitting in 10th
place with 10 minutes to go.
After being left in
the outside of the track a lot of times, Rosenqvist finally got room
to overtake Alexander Sims
and reach the podium, but with two minutes to go fortunes changed
sides again as Rosenqvist stopped due mechanical problems in his car,
promoting Sims to the podium again.
In the lead pack,
Buhk pushed in 20 minutes non-stop to reduce the gap to Vanthoor,
just to see that the progress wasn’t enough to reach the WRT car,
as the No. 1 Audi crossed the finish line with 1.7 seconds ahead of
the HTP Mercedes.
The Blancpain GT Series will continue
its Italian tour, now going to Monza where the Endurance Cup will
start in two weeks, on April 24th. The Sprint Cup takes a
month of pause, return at Brands Hatch on May 8th.
PHOTO: Blancpain GT Series
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