ROWE Racing made use of the home advantage, and with a mix of raw pace and strategic masterclass, the No. 98 BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn and Raffaele Marciello converted the pole into a win at Nürburgring’s GP-Strecke to stay alive in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup title fight.
Augusto Farfus had to resort to a bit of force to keep the No. 98 ROWE BMW in the lead as the No. 51 AF Corse tried a sneaky move on turn 2 and got the door shut by the Brazilian, which opened the way for Ayhançan Güven to take second place with the No. 22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche.
With the No. 991 Paradine BMW stopped due to crash damage, a neutralization period of 10 minutes was needed, but keeping Farfus at a close distance wasn’t being enough for Güven or Alessio Rovera, in special as both had to worry with the cars behind them as much as with the one in front, given that Nicki Thiim was bringing Charles Weerts to the back of the No. 51.
After the first stop, Mattia Drudi had no reservations to pass Jesse Krohn, putting the No. 007 Comtoyou Aston Martin in the lead, and despite the backmarkers appearing almost every minute, the order wasn’t changed. This also benefited the No. 33 Verstappen Aston Martin during the second stint, but with a full course yellow during the pitwork, the current order was at risk.
The yellow that appeared before the final hour benefited ROWE Racing again, as they had their time to complete the service in the No. 98 and put it back on track in the lead, with the No. 48 Winward Mercedes on the chase and the No. 64 HRT Mustang being the outsider in third. While the top two were in stable positions, a time penalty of 10 seconds due to speeding under yellow flags.
While the No. 98 ROWE BMW was within visible distance, the No. 48 Winward Mercedes never closed down to make a move, keeping the order until the finish line.
GTWC Europe - Nürburgring race results
Some of the classes had changes in their winners due to post race penalties. The No. 10 Boutsen VDS Mercedes escaped a late contact to win the Silver Cup from ninth overall, while the No. 777 Al Manar BMW inherited the Gold Cup after the No. 33 Verstappen Aston Martin was penalized for contact. Way down the order, the No. 80 Lionspeed GP Porsche conquered the Bronze Cup despite an off track excursion.
The trio with Cairoli/Engel/Auer (No. 48) leads the Endurance Cup standings with 72 points against 67 from Müller/Picariello/Niederhauser (No. 96), 54 points from van der Linde/de Wilde/Weerts (No. 32) and 45 points from Marciello/Krohn/Farfus (No. 98).
All Endurance Cup class titles are up for grabs at the season finale in Barcelona, with the last three hours of the season also crowing the overall GTWC Europe champions on 12 October.
PHOTO: SRO/JEP
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