Weekend Racing Roundup, 8.3

Pirelli World Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course wasn’t the only GT series in in action last weekend. Brands Hatch hosted the sixth round of the British GT Championship, the VLN and Supercar Challenge teams competed in their fifth round of the season, while the Japanese Super Taikyu series held round four at Autopolis. Here’s a recap of this weekend’s action.

Avon Tyres British GT Championship
Ecurie Ecosse duo Marco Attard and Alexander Sims won their second race in the 2015 Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Brands Hatch, beating Triple Eight Racing’s Joe Osborne and Lee Mowle in a thrilling sixth round of the season.

Beechdean AMR’s Andrew Howard led from the start of the race, but a 20-seconds success penalty for winning at Spa meant he rejoined in fifth place, with the Triple Eight BMW Z4 GT3 taking the lead, ahead of the Oman Racing Team Aston Martin and the Sims’ BMW.

The field was bunched up after the second safety car period and soon after Sims passed Rory Butcher and went after Osborne. The Triple Eight driver defended the lead, until sliding wide at Graham Hill Bend after lapping a back marker. Sims passed his rival and went on to win the race for Ecurie Ecosse.

Race – 1. Ecurie Ecosse (M. Attard/A. Sims) BMW, 2. Triple Eight Racing (L. Mowle/J. Osborne) BMW, 3. TF Sport (D. Johnston/M. Bell) Aston Martin.

VLN
Uwe Alzen and Dominik Schwager dominated the 47th ADAC Barbarossapreis, the fifth round of the VLN championship. In its first race of the season the Jürgen Alzen Motorsport entered by H&R Spezialfedern Ford GT beat the new Lexus RC-F GT3 of Dominik and Mario Farnbacher by almost 15 seconds. Michela Cerruti, Jesse Krohn and Felipe Fernándes Laser, the winners of the previous round, finished in third place.

Alzen and Schwager started from pole position, led 17 of the 28 laps and despite being handed two penalties were still able to grab the win. Alzen received a stop-go penalty for a too short first stop and 95 seconds were added to their total driving time for speeding in a slow zone. Farnbacher Racing secured the first podium finish for an Asian car manufacturer since the season final in 1979.

Race – 1. Jürgen Alzen Motorsport (U. Alzen/D. Schwager) Ford, 2. Farnbacher Racing (D. Farnbacher/M. Farnbacher) Lexus, 3. Walkenhorst Motorsport (M. Cerruti/J. Krohn/F. Laser) BMW.

Supercar Challenge
The Supercar Challenge teams traveled to Assen for the Gamma Racing Days, with two races planned for the weekend. The first race on Saturday was won by Volvo driver Henry Zumbrink, who crossed the line in second place. The Shipex SRT Racing Corvette led from start to finish, but the team was given a 22.5-second penalty as the team left Jeffrey van Hooydonk in the car for the entire race.

In race two on Sunday, in front of 87,500 fans, it was Berry van Elk and his Mosler MT900R who took his first win of the season, despite running wide at the start. The Dutchman recovered and quickly caught the two leaders, before dominating the race after the pit stops.

Race 1 – 1. Volvo Reede Racing By Day-V-Tec (H. Zumbrink) Volvo, 2. Shipex SRT Racing (J. van Hooydonk) Corvette, 3. BlueBerry Racing (B. van Elk) Mosler.

Race 2 – 1. BlueBerry Racing (B. van Elk) Mosler, 2. Volvo Reede Racing By Day-V-Tec (H. Zumbrink) Volvo 3. Radical Benelux (H. Thuis) Radical.

Super Taikyu
Round four of the Super Taikyu series was held at Autopolis this weekend. Tomonobu Fujii and ‘Gamisan’ qualified the GTNET ADVAN C-WEST Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 on pole position for the three-hour race, but the won by the Endless Advan BMW Z4 GT3 of Yuke Taniguchi, Kyosuke Mineo and Yuya Motojima.

ARN Racing’s Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 finished in second place, 70 seconds behind the BMW, with Kondo Racing’s Nissan taking third place at three minutes. The GTNET Nissan retired after 32 laps.

Race – 1. Endless Advan (Y. Taniguchi/K. Mineo/Y. Motojima) BMW, 2. ARN Racing (H. Nagai/K. Sasaki/A. Sato) Mercedes, 3. Kondo Racing (S. Hoshino/T. Fujii/M. Takaboshi) Nissan.