Luck can also be a
part of motorsport, even though teams, drivers, media and fans try to
deny it. Garage 59
can say they have all the luck of the World on their side, as their
worst 3 hours of the Blancpain GT Series
season didn’t affect their Endurance Cup title celebration while
Grässer Racing Team took victory this Sunday (18).
Green flag was on
and Luca Stolz kept the lead in the Grässer
Racing camp, being followed by the
Mirko Bortolotti, who passed Will Stevens right at the start. Too
many cars on track meant trouble and crashes as always, with Ahmad Al
Harthy spinning and crashing his Oman Racing Aston Martin and Andrew
Watson leaving Garage 59 with only one McLaren
650S on track, bringing an immediate
Safety Car period.
After 5 minutes of
neutralization the green flag was waved again and Dominik Baumann in
the No. 84 HTP Mercedes
gave room to not be caught in the 3rd
place battle between the Nos. 1 & 28 Audis from WRT,
with Stevens defending himself from Frederic Vervisch, with the
effort coming to nothing when the No. 1 finally made the overtake
with 15 minutes of racing.
like the WRT duo,
the Grässer 1-2 exchanged places with Bortolotti taking the top, but
Luca Stolz was also unable to defend the third spot from the hard
charge of Vervisch, becoming the target for Lucas Ordoñez in the No.
23 RJN Nissan.
The pit stops in the
first hour helped to shake things a bit in the top-5 after almost 30
minutes of no position changes, with Mitsunori Takaboshi taking
control of the No. 23 RJN Nissan and the third place from the No. 19
Grässer Racing Lamborghini,
with Michele Beretta behind the wheel. Beretta was also victim of the
No. 84 HTP Mercedes, with the car going down from first to fifth in
about an hour.
A series of problems
made it a troubled race for the championship leading No. 58 Garage 59
McLaren, but even though they were in 34th
position, the 4th
position of the No. 84 HTP Mercedes would keep the McLaren side with
the title, and if the situation on track was bad, the pit exit
without a single position change for the better left the No. 84 HTP
Mercedes and Maximilian Buhk in a tough situation for the last hour
of racing. What would change things a bit for them was the full
course yellow period with 55 minutes to go, when Louis Machiels sent
the No. 100 Attempto Racing Lamborghini to a straight trip to the
barrier.
After more than 20
minutes to switch the damaged barriers for new ones, the race resumed
with Maximilian Buhk in his toughest mission of the season, even
though the objective was to only get a podium. Alex Buncombe was his
target, but the British ace left the backmarkers in the dust fo the
No. 84 HTP Mercedes to deal with, charging with incredible pace to
the lead battle between Grässer and WRT, something that eventually
killed HTP’s hopes as time passed.
About the top
battle, Laurens Vanthoor had 30 minutes to try everything he could do
with his Audi R8 LMS to overtake Christian Engelhardt in the No. 16
Grässer Racing Lamborghini, but the German kept a solid drive like
he would do in a Porsche, to win by only 0.351 seconds, with Buncombe
coming in third 1.646 seconds behind. The No. 66 Black Pearl Ferrari
took Pro-Am honors while the No. 87 AKKA-ASP Mercedes won in the Am
Cup.
The Blancpain GT
Endurance Cup ends with Rob Bell, Côme Ledogar and V8 Supercars star
Shane van Gisbergen as overall championship winners with 68 points
against the 67 of Jazeman Jaafar, Dominik Baumann and Maximilian
Buhk. Garage 59 also won the Teams championship, scoring 71 points
like Bentley Team M-Sport and WRT.
Michal Broniszewski,
Alessandro Bonacini and Andrea Rizzoli became Pro-Am Cup champions
with 102 points against the 89 points of Philippe Giauque, Henry
Hassid and Franck Perera. The Am Cup champions were Australian Liam
Talbot, Russian Vadim Gitlin and Italian Marco Zanuttini with 94
points, with AKKA-ASP trio with Jean-Luc Beaubelique , Maurice Ricci
and Gilles Vannelet coming right behind with 92 points. The Pro-Am
and Am Cup titles go to Switzerland as both crews are part of Kessel
Racing, and the Pro-Am title is the first Blancpain GT one of the
Ferrari 488 GT3.
Two weeks is what
separates us from the last round of the Blancpain GT Sprint Cup at
Barcelona on October 2nd,
which will also settle the overall Blancpain GT Series class
champions of 2016.
PHOTOS: Grässer Racing Team, Garage 59, Blancpain GT Series
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