Weekly Racing Roundup (10.17.22)

Oregon’s Pulcini, Hites Take GT Open Title

Leonardo Pulcini and Benjamin Hites won the International GT Open title for series debutant Oregon Team, marking the second consecutive championship for a Lamborghini pairing after Vincenzo Sospiri Racing’s triumph last year.

The drivers of the No. 63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo finished third and fifth in the season-ending 60-minute races at Barcelona and emerged three points ahead of Optimum Motorsport’s Joe Osborne and Nick Moss who placed fifth and fourth.

GetSpeed Performance won the opening contest with its Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Fabian Schiller and Al Faisal Al Zubair.

Schiller led the early stages from pole position, with reigning Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe champion Pulcini in second ahead of Osborne’s McLaren 720S GT3.

After the driver swaps, Pulcini’s co-driver Hites dropped behind Dinamic Motorsport Porsche driver Klaus Bachler, but remained ahead of Moss.

After Optimum’s pit stop, Moss slotted in between the Oregon Lamborghinis, with light contact causing Glenn van Berlo to spin around.

At the head of the field, Al Zubair kept Bachler at bay to take the victory, while Hites and Pulcini completed the podium.

The No. 63 Oregon Lamborghini and the Optimum McLaren needed to fight through the field in Race 2, with Hites running 14th and Moss 17th during the opening stint.

Optimum jumped Oregon in the pits and Osborne climbed into the top four, however Pulcini’s progression to fifth ensured that he and Hites were crowned champions.

Their teammates van Berlo and Kevin Gilardoni won the final race of the season and took third in the standings.

RESULTS: Race 1 / Race 2 / Standings

Loggie Earns Maiden British GT Championship

Ian Loggie claimed his first overall Intelligent Money British GT Championship title with a second-place finish in the two-hour season finale at Donington Park.

Loggie, who shared his RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Jules Gounon, ended up 34 points clear of Barwell Motorsport’s Sandy Mitchell and Adam Balon in the final leaderboard.

Sunday’s race was won by Century Motorsport’s Alexander Sims and Darren Leung who claimed the first win for the BMW M4 GT3 on British soil.

Loggie’s race had a dramatic start as he ran across the gravel in avoidance of a spinning car and rotated on his own at Goddards, sending him to the back of the pack.

Fortunately for the Bronze-rated Scot, his nearest challengers Balon and James Cottingham also encountered early trouble that eased the pressure on the title chase.

Team ABBA Racing led the early stages through Richard Neary, who was forced to retire after 50 minutes when his car suddenly lost drive exiting Redgate.

That promoted the guesting Orange Racing McLaren 720S GT3 to the head of the pack, however a slow pit stop thrust Century Motorsport into first with Sims behind the wheel, despite the BMW having taken a 10-second success penalty during its service.

A safety car period bunched the field up but Sims defended well from Gounon in the RAM Mercedes-AMG and Mitchell in the Barwell Lamborghini to take the win.

The GT4 drivers’ title went to Sennan Fielding and Richard Williams who finished second in their Steller Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT4.

RESULTS: Donington / Standings

Audi Pair Win GT2 European Series Title

Nicolas Saelens and Stienes Longin became Fanatec GT2 European Series champions after winning both 50-minute races at the Paul Ricard title decider.

The drivers of the No. 11 PK Carsport Audi R8 LMS GT2 resisted the best efforts of their nearest challenger Stefan Rosina, who had reduced his deficit to five points heading into the final round.

Rosina and his True Racing KTM co-driver Filip Sladecka were ultimately unable to overhaul Saelens and Longin after finishing third in Race 1 and retiring from Race 2.

Saelens led the opening laps of Race 1 but was overtaken by already-confirmed Am class champion Henry Hassid who was also driving an Audi.

Hassid’s son Maxime dropped back to fourth after the driver changes, with Bert Longin leading in the No. 81 PK Carsport car by less than a second from his son Stienes, while Anders Fjordbhach sat third in the Brabham BT63 GT2.

Stienes Longin got past his father, however Bert submitted to the pressure from Fjordbach, who in turn was caught and overtaken by Rosina.

However, True Racing’s hopes of snatching the title away were ended late in the second race when Sladecka and Audi driver Aurelius Rusteika came together at Signes.

That ensured the championship went to Longin and Saelens, whose car started second behind Fjordbach in the Brabham but jumped ahead during the pit stops. The factory-entered Brabham later crashed out at Turn 1 with Kevin Weeda at the wheel.

RESULTS: Race 1 / Race 2 / Standings

Red Flag Disrupts Michelin Le Mans Cup Finale

A lengthy red flag for an accident on the start-finish straight caused the final race of the Michelin Le Mans Cup season to be red-flagged for almost 100 minutes.

LMP3 driver Jerome de Sadeleer crashed hard into the right-side barrier after losing control in avoidance of Freddie Hunt’s Ligier JS P320 Nissan, which had jinked right to get around race leader Torsten Kratz whose car slowed approaching the restart line.

Cars were ordered to line up on the straight and the race clock kept ticking down for most of the stoppage, leaving only 32 minutes of racing to the checkered flag.

Mads Siljehaug took the victory in the Reiter Engineering Ligier that was started by Hunt, who swapped out immediately after the red flag concluded.

Siljehaug was tasked with hunting down Kratz’s co-driver Leo Weiss and successfully found a route past the WTM driver at Turn 11.

The Norwegian then defended his lead from a charging Colin Noble to win by 2.5 seconds.

Kratz and Weiss were classified ninth after the stewards dished out a 35-second penalty for Kratz “performing an erratic maneuver” that led to the major accident.

Hunt was critical of how the restart was handled, suggesting that the safety car didn’t give enough notice to the leading drivers and that he slowed to avoid passing Kratz before the safety car.

De Sadeleer, meanwhile, was taken to hospital for checks and traveled back home later in the weekend.

In the GT3 class, Kei Cozzolino and Koizumi Hiroshi claimed victory for AF Corse, but it was the GMB Motorsport Honda pairing of Kristian Poulsen and Kasper H. Jensen that took the title.

RESULTS: Portimao / LMP3 Standings / GT3 Standings

Other Racing Action

***The final round of the FFSA French GT season took place at Paul Ricard, where Alban Varutti and Julien Piguet reversed a 36-point deficit to Nico Prost and Rudy Servol to take the Pro-Am class title. Ricardo van der Ende and Benjamin Lessennes won both races overall in their BMW M4 GT4, while Silver Cup champions Erwan Bastard and Roee Meyuhas competed in a special gold livery to cap their recent French and European title double. Race 1 / Race 2

***Ningbo hosted the penultimate round of the China Endurance Championship season, which was won by the TORO Racing Mercedes-AMG pairing of Luo Kailuo and Xie Xinzh. They beat Harmony Racing’s three-driver Ferrari crew by 14 seconds. Results

***Porsche Center Okazaki prevailed in the five-hour Super Taikyu enduro at Okayama with its Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Hiroaki Nagai, Yuta Kamimura and 2007 Super GT champion Daisuke Ito. Results.

***Over in New Zealand, Anthony Leighs and Tom Alexander won the latest round of the South Island Endurance Series at Timaru, sharing a Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3.

***Gillian Henrion completed a dominant campaign in the Ligier European Series by winning both season-ending races at Portimao. The JS P4 class champion ended up 93 points clear at the top of the standings. In JS 2R, Horst Felix Felbermayr claimed his first victory in car racing while Haytham Qarajouli was crowned champion. Race 1 / Race 2

News & Notes

***The Sepang 12 Hours, formerly a round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli, will return next year on March 3-5. TopSpeed will promote the event, which is set to include classes for GT and TCR machinery. The Malaysian race was last held in 2016 when Audi Sport Team Phoenix took victory.

***TopSpeed owner and general manager Davide De Gobbi commented: “We are excited to be working with the team at Sepang International Circuit to bring back an iconic event like the Sepang 12 Hours. The combination of our experience and their local knowledge is sure to create a great event to welcome endurance racing back to the region.”

***Stock Car Pro Series ace Bruno Baptista headlines Brazil’s sports car racing entry for the FIA Motorsport Games. The 25-year-old, who is fourth in the top Brazilian national championship, will share an Akkodis ASP-run Mercedes-AMG with Adalberto Baptista in GT Cup, as well as race solo in GT Sprint.

***David Schumacher suffered a lumbar vertebra fracture in his first-lap accident with Thomas Preining at the DTM season finale. Schumacher’s Mercedes-AMG struck the right-side barriers at Turn 9 after contact with Preining’s Porsche 911 GT3 R.

***After further investigation, Iron Lynx found that the issue that caused its Iron Dames Ferrari to retire from a Gold Cup title-winning position at the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup season finale was not prompted by a driveshaft failure as first thought. Rather, a seal connected to the driveshaft came loose, causing the system to malfunction.

***The Ligier European Series will introduce split classes for each of its spec-machinery categories next season. Pro-Am (Gold-Bronze and Silver-Bronze) lineups and Am (Bronze solo and all-Bronze) lineups are being planned for the JSP4 and JS2R classes of Ligier’s single-make sports car competition.

***Madpanda Motorsport team principal and driver Ezequiel Companc will become the first South American to compete in Extreme E when he enters the electric off-road series event at Punta del Este, Uruguay on Nov. 26-27. Companc is set to drive for XITE Energy Racing.

On this weekend: ADAC GT Masters (Hockenheim), Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS (The Bend), NLS (Round 8)