From a start from the back of the grid to a commanding win at the Campeonato Gaúcho de Endurance opener at Tarumã, that was Mottin Racing’s day with their No. 46 JLM Racing AJR, driven by Juliano Moro, Ernani Kuhn and Adriano Baldo, beating the consistent fleet aligned by Tech Force Racing Team.
The new season had late news for the grid, as Overboost Motorsport replaced their No. 71 MCR with a returning DTR prototype, a bold project that has seen competitive action only once, in the 2019 Endurance Brasil 3 Hours of Santa Cruz do Sul, and ever since did sporadic testing over the years.
Despite having scored the pole position, the No. 110 DTR wasn’t able to align in the initial grid due to a broken third gear, of which the team didn’t have a replacement, and even Mottin Racing almost risked not starting as they had trouble that was solved a few minutes before the pitlane closed to get the starting procedure going.
With the unusual scenario of not having the polesitter on track, Tech Force had the front of the field all for themselves, with the two Sigma P1s opening the gap immediately while the No. 63 Mercedes was isolated in third. Overboost eventually got more problems with the No. 777 Linea stopping in the pitlane while the No. 28 Metalmoro Vettore stopped on track, triggering the first Safety car entry.
Once the restart came, the Tech Force Sigmas had company in form of the No. 46 Mottin AJR, and while traffic held the AJR initially, it took half of a lap to dispatch the No. 12 Sigma and around the same distance to steal the lead from the No. 121 Sigma.
With nearly 30 minutes of racing, the race was red flagged due to an accident at Turn 1 where the No. 123 Overboost Linea literally mounted over a slow No. 36 Spyder, with fire appearing as soon as the cars stopped near Turn 2 and the rescue crews coming in immediately.
It took nearly an hour to clear the track, mostly because of the compounds in the extinguishers than because of the cars themselves, and in the meantime, Overboost Motorsport was able to leave the No. 110 DTR in condition to be launched for some competitive laps, treating it like a luxury test session to see how far the car can go, and if it can climb the order and score points, then it would be progress.
The Sigmas were still running in formation until the nearly the end of the hour, but then traffic played a part again, with the No. 777 Overboost Linea making contact with the No. 12 Tech Force Sigma at the Turn 1 entry, sending the prototype backwards to the tire barriers, which obliterated the back end of the car, and the third Safety Car entry was called.
Eventually, it was a question of bringing the car home for Juliano Moro, as the No. 46 Mottin AJR had a lap ahead of the No. 63 Tech Force Mercedes, and with the No. 99 Celta finding the barriers at Turn 9, the raced was ended behind the Safety Car with 2 minutes to go.
Gaúcho de Endurance - Tarumã race results
The No. 63 Tech Force Mercedes got the P2 class win from the second place overall, while the No. 7 Sette Car MRX commanded the tough battle for P3 class honors. The No. 50 MC Tubarão VW Gol was the GT2 class winner, and just inside the overall top 10, the No. 4 Xtreme Ford Ka won the GT class. The No. 81 Master Racing Maserati had its hiccups but won the GT1 class and the No. 23 Aldee won the P4 class.
The competition goes to a month of pause to return at Guaporé, where the second round will be hosted on 24 May.
Comments
Post a Comment
Do you have an opinion? Feel free to comment.