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ST Racing Scores Maiden Win for M4 GT3 at Mugello

BMW’s new flaghip racer takes first victory in twelve-hour Italian contest…

Photo: 24H Series

ST Racing has secured the maiden victory for the BMW M4 GT3 by winning the Hankook 12H Mugello.

The Canadian squad took the overall win over the two-day event with Samantha Tan, Bryson Morris and Nick Wittmer behind the wheel.

It marks the first time BMW’s new flagship GT3 racer has taken a race victory.

ST started the second portion of the race from pole position on Sunday morning after taking the checkered flag for the overnight intervention on Saturday.

After maintaining the lead, the No. 1 BMW had a fairly trouble-free run to the win, finishing two laps clear of the No. 18 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II driven by Michael Doppelmayr, Pierre Kaffer, Elia Erhart and Swen Herberger.

The overall podium was completed by the No. 25 Mann-Filter Team Landgraf Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Alexander Hrachowina, Martin Konrad and Bernd Schneider.

Just 1.4 seconds separated the Audi and the Mercedes at the line, with the gap brought down in the closing hour when the No. 72 JUTA Racing Audi became beached in the gravel and caused a Code 60, which the Phoenix car used as an opportunity to pit while the Mercedes remained on track.

The order between the two cars was maintained by yet another Code 60 with under ten minutes to go when the No. 8 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo also found the gravel at turn 3.

The race went back to green with just 90 seconds left on the clock, allowing Phoenix to keep second place.

CP Racing finished fourth overall with its No. 85 Mercedes driven by the all-American trio of Charles Putman, Charles Espenlaub and Joe Foster.

While its No. 72 car failed to finish after its earlier incident, the No. 71 JUTA Racing Audi did complete the race with fifth place overall overall for Julius Adomavičius, Andrius Gelžinis and Jonas Gelžinis.

The No. 58 MP Racing Mercedes, driven by Thomas, Gostner and Corinna Gostner alongside recent Sebring 12H class winner Giorgio Sernagiotto, finished sixth as the final GT3 contender to be classified ahead of the lower categories.

Several high profile GT3 entries failed to finish. Most notably, the No. 26 Sainteloc Racing Audi and No. 61 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R retired after both cars were involved in a collision at turn one that left both cars in the gravel.

The No. 91 Herberth Motorsport Porsche also retired after a troublesome day of running on Saturday.

The GT4 class was won by the No. 421 Team ACP-Tangerine Associates by VEIDEC JJ Motosport BMW M4 GT4 driven by Catesby Jones and Wim Spinoy.

The Belgian-flagged squad started the day three laps down on its sole class rival, but inherited the class lead when the No. 417 Orchid Racing Team Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 ran into mechanical trouble.

The Porsche, driven by Alexandre Mottet, Stefan Chaligne, Antoine Leclerc and Antonio Garzon, completed the race to finish second in class, 36 laps behind the winning BMW.

RESULTS: Hankook 12H Mugello Part 2

Davey Euwema is Sportscar365's European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.

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