Rain Strategy Pays Off for Dinamic to Win on Debut

Dinamic Motorsport’s sporting director says it was a gamble to only use rain tires during Sunday’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup opener en route to a surprise win in the team’s debut GT3 race.

Alessandro Antonelli was elated with the victory after the rain-affected three-hour race at Monza which saw the small Italian team beat many well-established rivals.

Former Porsche junior Klaus Bachler joined Porsche Supercup driver Zaid Ashkanani and GT3 regular Andrea Rizzoli in the new-gen Porsche 911 GT3 R.

While it does have some previous experience in 24H Series competition, Dinamic has previously focused on Porsche Supercup and Carrera Cup programs, and makes the step up to GT3 competition this year.

“This is the first year we have done Blancpain,” Antonelli told Sportscar365. “We cannot imagine something better.

“It’s something that we will realize tomorrow morning, and we are very happy. We’ve done it step by step, so this is a great start to the season.”

Rizzoli started the race from 22nd position and handed over to Ashkanani early after 55 minutes of running. 

The Kuwaiti driver made up several positions during stages of the middle stint when rain started to pour more heavily, while several other cars had chosen slick tires.

From there, Bachler remained near the front during the final stint and avoided picking up a puncture like many other drivers running wet tires on the drying track during the closing stages, including Christopher Haase from whom Bachler inherited the lead.

“We used wet tires every time,” explained Antonelli. “We did the first pit stop very early because we wanted to be sure there was no traffic in the pit lane.  

“We saw some teams use slick tires and we looked at what they were doing on track, and we remained 100 percent on the rain strategy.”

Ashkanani also made his GT3 debut this weekend after primarily competing in Porsche Supercup with MRS-GT Racing last year.

“It’s just unbelievable, and I’m super happy about it,” he told Sportscar365.

“The quali was a bit difficult for us but we learned something and for the race we just wanted to stay out of trouble and minimize our mistakes.

“Everything went well for us and the car was amazing to drive. I did enjoy it a lot.”

Antonelli admitted it will be difficult for his team to match the pace of its rivals in dry conditions later in the season, but remains fairly confident of Dinamic’s chances.

“We expect the rest of the season will be difficult, as was the start of this weekend,” he said.

“We had no problems and I hope we can have some results like this. We know it will not be easy but we will try and do our best.”

Added Ashkanani: “I hope we will stay competitive and keep pushing for it and keep learning.

“Especially for the team, it’s the first time in this series with this car. Every time, we are just gaining experience so we have to take the max from every race.”