Stadler Motorsport Leads 12H Hungary At Halfway Mark

The No. 20 Stadler Motorsport Porsche leads at halfway and has led for most of the first half of the 12 Hours of Hungary.

However, it has been far from easy as all three of the A6 class runners have taken turns at the front and the gap between them has rarely been more than a lap or so. Stadler drivers Rolf Ineichen, Adrian Amstutz, and Mark Ineichen have had to keep up a hard pace as the team has made more stops than their two Mercedes rivals.

Indeed, just as the 6-hour point passed it was the No. 4 SPS Mercedes in a temporary lead during a pit stop exchange.

The No. 1 Hofor Racing Mercedes of Christiaan Frankenhout, Kenneth Heyer, Michael Kroll, and Roland Eggimann started from the pole but lost the lead at the first turn of the race. They subsequently traded the lead during pit stop exchanges but have spent most of the race in third.

Meanwhile, Lance David Arnold, who took the lead on lap one with the No. 4 SPS Automotive Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, has been taking the race to the Porsche. Arnold is supported by Valentin Pierburg and Tim Müller.

The SP2 class has been dominated all day by the No. 8 Team ZaWoTec Porsche Cup entry of Lukas Schreier, Daniel Uckermann, and Jürgen Daum. Only one other car in that class has remained in striking distance, the No. 7 SPS Porsche while the unique Lexus IS-F of Lithuanian team Artas has been running slowly and has been delayed.

An early leader in SP2, the Marc cars Ford silhouette, became the first official retirement after finding that the oil tank could not be replaced or repaired after it had an accident at the start of a brief rain squall. The No. 57 Red Camel Audi initially was in the hunt, having made a superb start. However, they have incurred a blown engine but have not yet decided to quit.

The A5 Touring car class firmly swung towards Team Altran. Their two Peugeot 208 GTis hold a 1-2 grasp in the class with the No. 18 car of Vincent Rademecker, Guillaume Roman, and Steven Palette having led from the start. This class lost one of its contenders with the RTR / Kops No. 17 BMW Z4 retired with a broken gearbox.

The mostly diesel D1 class has had but one leader for the past six hours. Tom Onslow-Cole, Jade Edwards, and Paul White have been keeping a metronomic pace in the No. 38 KPM Racing Volkswagen Golf.

There have been two relatively brief Code 60 interruptions. One was for the Marc-Ford accident while the other was for a trip into the barriers by the No. 32 HM Motorsport Peugeot RCZ, which was subsequently repaired.