Stuttgart Motorsport Porsche dominates 500 km of Curitiba

Porsche fought for Le Mans glory last week with its factory team and gave quite a show at Curitiba this Saturday (24) with its Brazilian representative, as Stuttgart Motorsport dominated with certain ease the 500 km of Curitiba, second round of the national part od the Dopamina Endurance championship, with faultless drives of Ricardo Maurício and Marcel Visconde.

The start saw the No. 20 Stuttgart Porsche take the lead from the No. 28 JLM MetalMoro AJR, suffering a heavy position drop right at the start. If this wasn't bad enough for JLM Racing, the No. 28 stopped on track a few laps later in the first chicane, bringing the first yellow flag and Safety Car visit.

With 25 minutes the second yellow was brought as the No. 35 Bana Predator stopped on the first chicane and the No. 71 SATTI MCR stopped on the infield. Once the green was back, Ricardo Maurício started do build a large lead in favor of the No. 20, with 15 seconds ahead of the No. 44 Ebrahim Audi, which was in second place.

Eventually the pitstops weren't on favor of the No. 20 Stuttgart Porsche, but Marcel Visconde soon applied a brave recovery until getting closer to the leading No. 05 MC Tubarão, but the No. 117 MR18 also came to the party, keeping close distance until effectively overtake for the top spot. Things then pretty much settled for the current positions thanks to multiple yellow flags being thrown.

With almost 2 hours of racing a scary moment was seen on the pitlane as the No. 80 KIA Power Imports prototype caught fire, which was quickly controlled to let the car get back to action. The pits were an important spot again when the second pit window came as the No. 117 MR18 stayed a little longer for further checks due to loose bodywork, meaning that the No. 20 Porsche had the lead totally in control, now with Ricardo Maurício behind the wheel again.

As the race progressed to the end, Maurício's pace was becoming stronger and stronger, raising the gap to two laps, while the new second placed car, the No. 05 MC Tubarão, had to recover a full lap. Once the top-3 had their final stops, the No. 20 Stuttgart Porsche kept the lap of advantage to the No. 117, and with this scenario Ricardo Maurício just had to bring the No. 20 Porsche with care to the checkered flag and the debut GP1 class win after 136 laps.

500 km of Curitiba – Final Results

The No. 7 Sette Car MRX-Honda of Marcelo Campagnolo and Aldoir Sette won the P2 class after some troubled moments and having to hold the No. 32 MC Tubarão of Mauro Kern and Paulo Sousa. The P3 class was won by the No. 69 MC Tubarão of Marcelo Vianna and Julio Martini, with the No. 131 Spyder in second and the No. 79 Spyder in third. The No. 8 car was set for second but was punished for not respecting the finish line procedure.

The No. 17 Mottin Racing Chevy Sonic conquered GT1 class honors while the No. 99 FIAT Linea won in GT2. The No. 88 VW Gol won the T class and was the only one to finish as the No. 30 VW Gol was excluded due to a contact that ended the race of the No. 56 Simon MRX.

The Dopamina Endurance championship stops for a month and returns at the Brazilian temple of speed with the 500 km of Interlagos on July 29^th.

PHOTO: Endurance Brasil