Paul Ricard Post-Race Notebook

***Akkodis ASP claimed Mercedes-AMG’s first victory in the Paul Ricard 1000km, which has been held annually as part of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup calendar since 2012. Nine manufacturers have now won the race.

***ASP achieved its fourth Endurance Cup win, putting the French squad equal third on the all-time list alongside Grasser Racing Team, M-Sport and Dinamic Motorsport.

***The one-two result for Mercedes-AMG came after the German manufacturer received a 20 kg weight increase in a Balance of Performance change after qualifying. The only other adjustment was a 15 kg weight reduction for the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.

***Timur Boguslavskiy said that the setup of the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was “mega” as he kept Akkodis ASP in contention during the middle portion of the race. “I was trying to fight in the traffic because that’s where I was losing and gaining positions,” he told Sportscar365.

***Boguslavskiy, who took his first overall Endurance Cup win, became the 33rd driver to win outright in both GTWC Europe championships, having taken six wins in Sprint Cup.

***Jules Gounon praised a “great job” from his co-drivers Boguslavskiy and Raffaele Marciello. Silver-graded Boguslavskiy minimized the time loss against higher-rated drivers during his stints — atoning for an incident-strewn outing at Monza — while Marciello made crucial overtakes to secure the win.

***Gounon told Sportscar365: “Timur showed great performance last year in Sprint and the beginning of the season was difficult. We were also used to working with Dani [Juncadella] in the past but Timur did a great job this weekend. The car was really good. We knew it was a long race, so we just waited for the final push and Lello did a great job.”

***Boutsen VDS was fined €1,000 for unsafely releasing Adam Eteki’s No. 9 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II into the path of Valentino Rossi’s BMW M4 GT3 during qualifying. The contact resulted in a right-front puncture for the BMW factory driver.

***Rossi, Augusto Farfus and Maxime Martin nonetheless advanced from 20th on the grid to eighth overall. “Obviously, we wanted more, but we finished in the top 10 after a good race which is good preparation ahead of Spa,” said Rossi.

***The BMW teams were left pondering why their turbocharged cars appeared to be more competitive in the warmer daytime conditions than at night. Colder conditions normally favor the turbos and this was expected to be a strong area for the M4 GT3.

***Nick Yelloly told Sportscar365 that the ROWE Racing BMWs were “set up differently” which contributed to the No. 998 car of Neil Verhagen, Dan Harper and Max Hesse having better pace during the night. “It seemed to work slightly better for them in those conditions,” he said.

***WRT’s sporting director Kurt Mollekens, meanwhile, said that the team “need to analyze” why the BMWs weren’t as effective as expected in the dark. “I think we had very strong pace from hours one to four,” he told Sportscar365. “But when the night fell, the BMWs started losing pace. We were not expecting that at all.”

***The No. 30 BMW from WRT retired after suffering an oil pump belt failure, according to Mollekens. “That stopped the engine immediately,” he said. “It went into security mode because there’s no more oil pressure. I don’t think the engine is touched, it just shut off immediately.”

***Yelloly, Marco Wittmann and Philipp Eng maintained their Endurance Cup championship lead at Paul Ricard, which had more points on offer than Monza. The ROWE BMW trio sits on 54 points, nine more than the winning Akkodis ASP lineup.

***The Pro-class Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2s from Iron Lynx and K-PAX Racing managed braking issues during the race. A Lamborghini Squadra Corse spokesperson told Sportscar365 that several of the manufacturer’s cars experienced “abnormal wear of the brake pads.”

***AF Corse team manager Bernardo Serra reckoned that the Ferrari 296 GT3s had “more or less the same pace” as at Monza, despite both cars improving on their results in Italy. “The car is a bit improved, but we are pretty far from the leader,” Serra suggested.

***AF Corse plans to run its Pro-Am entry using a Ferrari 296 GT3 at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, after starting the season with an older Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

***The No. 54 Dinamic GT Huber Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, which was a new chassis after the original was damaged in a crash at the Nürburgring 24, retired after 115 laps due to a suspension issue that needs further analysis to fully diagnose, according to the team.

***The No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi rose from 53rd on the grid to win the Silver Cup class in 15th overall. Attempto team principal Arkin Aka told Sportscar365 that the poor qualifying performance was caused by an alternator problem: “The belt from the alternator was broken. After the second part of qualifying, we couldn’t shift.”

***Attempto and Pro-Am winner Car Collection Motorsport both claimed their maiden victories in any class of GTWC Europe Endurance Cup.

***A wheel bearing failure caused the No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to retire from the Bronze Cup lead with seven minutes to go, according to team principal Andrew Kirkaldy. The left-rear wheel detached as Henrique Chaves approached the Mistral Straight and the Portuguese driver parked up to one side.

***It marked the second time in as many Paul Ricard visits that Garage 59 has lost a likely class win right at the end after Chaves’ final stint last year was compromised by a steering issue.

***Haupt Racing Team ended up profiting from the Garage 59 problems, after rebounding from a five-second penalty due to Hubert Haupt spinning around the class- leading Pure Rxcing Porsche. Haupt, Arjun Maini and Sebastien Baud now lead the Bronze Cup standings by 11 points, in the classification that awards an automatic invitation to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***The six-hour race could have been the first opportunity to see GTWC Europe’s new safety car wave-by rule in action, but there was only one such incident on the first lap when Barwell Motorsport’s Rob Collard crashed at the turn before the Mistral Straight.

***The next stop for GTWC Europe is the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on July 1-2, which marks the third round of both the Endurance Cup season and the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli.