Weekly Racing Roundup (10.23.23)

Eastalent Audi Snatches GT Open Title

Eastalent Racing’s Christopher Haase and Simon Reicher overturned a 14-point deficit to capture the International GT Open title on countback at the Barcelona season finale.

The drivers of the No. 23 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II ended up as champions after taking their first win of the season in Race 1 and sixth in the second encounter despite finishing behind their main rivals.

They finished on equal points with Team Motorpark driver Diego Menchaca but won the title by virtue of having more second-place finishes during the season.

Haase and Reicher were originally eight points off the lead coming into the final weekend but the deficit increased mid-event when the Spanish motorsport federation accepted an appeal from Motopark against a decision at the Red Bull Ring last month.

The German-Austrian pairing won the first race after Reicher moved up to fourth when title rival Charlie Fagg was involved in a collision at the start and had to retire.

Albert Costa, partnering title hopeful Menchaca, was given a drive-through for contact on his charge into the lead.

After the driver changes and penalties, Haase was in front and the Audi factory driver kept it clean following a late safety car restart to win by a second from the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Nicola Marinangeli and Riccardo Agostini.

Having taken the points lead, Haase and Reicher sealed the title on Sunday.

Race 2 saw Mikaeel Pitamber and Dominik Baumann win for SPS Automotive Performance, leading home a Mercedes-AMG one-two ahead of GetSpeed’s Fabian Schiller and Al Faisal Al Zubair.

In another safety car-affected contest, Baumann ran second behind five-time pole-sitter Maximilian Paul before handing the SPS car over to Pitamber, who led as the Oregon Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 slipped from first to fifth.

Reicher was in the middle of a second-stint battle with the other title contenders but did enough to seal the championship despite Fagg and Sam De Haan finishing third, and Menchaca and Costa’s Mercedes-AMG charging from the back of the grid to fourth.

RESULTS: Race 1 / Race 2 / Standings

Harper Heroics Guide Century to British GT Title

Century Motorsport BMW drivers Dan Harper and Darren Leung fought back to win the Intelligent Money British GT Championship in the two-hour title decider at Donington Park.

Leung, who started racing two years ago in the Ginetta GT Academy, took the opening stint and surged into a 19-second lead after overtaking Andrew Howard’s pole-sitting Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

However, Leung’s big lead was cut back by a safety car period, caused by multiple incidents including a clash between two cars at the Melbourne Hairpin, a stranded Aston Martin Vantage GT4 and a crash for the Fox Motorsport Lamborghini at the Old Hairpin.

The leveling-out of the field meant that Harper dropped to 13th after the pit stops because Century’s BMW M4 GT3 needed to serve compensation time when it came in.

However, the BMW factory driver charged through the field during his stint with the target of finishing fifth or higher.

His cause was aided by title rival James Cottingham, partnered with guest co-driver Philip Ellis, being given a drive-through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.

After passing several drivers, Harper came up nine seconds short against the winning Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Sandy Mitchell and Shaun Balfe, however his and Leung’s podium against a 10th-place for Cottingham ensured the title went their way.

It marked the first overall British GT Championship for a BMW since Marco Attard won in 2014 for Ecurie Ecosse.

The GT4 title went to Erik Evans and Matt Cowley who were outsiders coming into the Donington finale but overturned a 16.5-point deficit and 46 seconds of pit stop compensation time to win aboard Academy Motorsport’s Ford Mustang GT4.

RESULTS: Donington Park / Standings

Incident Doesn’t Deny Virage in Le Mans Cup

Team Virage’s Julien Gerbi and Gillian Henrion became the new Michelin Le Mans Cup LMP3 champions despite contact affecting their season-ending race at Portimao.

Their Ligier JS P320 Nissan was put in jeopardy when Gerbi was hit out of the lead by the Murphy Prototypes Duqueine D08 Nissan of Torsten Kratz and slid into the gravel.

After dropping off the lead lap due to the recovery, Virage continued but Henrion was down in 21st when the incident-packed race was red-flagged due to heavy rain with 20 minutes left on the clock.

However, he and Gerbi won the title because their closest challengers from CD Sport and Team Thor needed to win.

The victory instead went to Josh Skelton and Tony Wells who prevailedfor Nielsen Racing and improved significantly on their previous-best result of eighth this season.

Vincent Abril and Hiroshi Hamaguchi won the GT3 class in 11th overall for the Iron Lynx Lamborghini team, but it was the Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin pairing of Valentin Hasse-Clot and Arnold Robin who secured the title with second place.

RESULTS: Portimao / Standings

Other Racing Action & News

***The ADAC GT Masters season wrapped up at Hockenheim where the teenage duo of Salman Owega and Elias Seppanen won the title in a Landgraf Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. The championship went down to the final race after Marco Mapelli and Benjamin Hites won the opener, but Owega and Seppanen recovered from their ninth place on Saturday to secure the crown with a Sunday podium. Race 1 / Race 2

***Spa-Francorchamps will join a six-round GT Masters schedule next year, series promoter the ADAC confirmed last weekend. The 2024 calendar consists of races at Oschersleben (April 26-28), Zandvoort (June 7-9), Nürburgring (July 12-14), Spa (Aug. 30-Sep. 1), Red Bull Ring (Sep. 27-29) and Hockenheim (Oct. 18-20).

***The ADAC also announced that Platinum-rated drivers will not be allowed to race in GT Masters next year and that all-Gold driver pairings will be prohibited. “In the future, we will focus [the series] consistently on young drivers and ambitious gentlemen drivers and thus give the series a new profile,” said ADAC Motorsport Director Thomas Voss.

***This weekend’s planned 6 Hours of Rome for GT4 cars has been called off, according to event organizers SRO Motorsports Group and the ADAC. In a statement, they said a mutual decision to postpone “until a later date” was made between the promoters and teams due to an “overload of work, and the constraints generated by the resulting calendar being less well-balanced than usual.”

***Barwell Motorsport has announced plans to continue fielding a pair of Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2s in British GT next season. The team’s current Silver-Am pairing of Mark Sansom and Will Tregurtha is set to graduate to European competition.

***Rookie Racing won the three-hour Super Taikyu round at Okayama with its pole-sitting Mercedes-AMG driven by Ryuta Ukai, Naoya Gamou, Hibiki Taira and Tatsuya Kataoka. Results