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Weekend Racing Roundup, 4.28

Catch up on the latest action from around the world of sports car racing…

Photo: ADAC GT Masters

Photo: ADAC GT Masters

In this week’s Sportscar365 Weekend Racing Roundup we bring you race updates from Germany, France and Belgium. VLN and GT Masters raced in Germany, the French GT championship kicked off in Le Mans and BRCC started its season at Zolder.

VLN
Nick Catsburg and Dirk Adorf won the third round of the VLN series with their BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS BMW Z4 GT3, scuring the first win for BMW in the series this season.

Nissan GT Academy Team RJN started from pole position, but the Nissan GT-R suffered a puncture and dropped down the order. An early pit stop and fast pace resulted in the No. 26 BMW taking the lead and finishing 3.575s clear of the second placed Dörr Motorsport McLaren after four hours.

Race – 1. BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS (Catsburg/Adorf), BMW Z4 GT3, 2. Dörr Motorsport (Adams/Estre/Klasen), McLaren MP4-12C GT3, 3. Phoenix Racing (Fässler/Basseng/Stippler) Audi R8 LMS ultra.

ADAC GT Masters
HTP Motorsport and Prosperia C. Abt Racing took a win each during the eventful opening weekend of the ADAC GT Masters season at Oschersleben.

On Saturday it was Maximilian Buhk taking the lead after a turbulent start, but he was unable to pull away as the safety car was sent out twice within the first 20 minutes. Halfway through Götz took over from Buhk, but another safety car bunched up the field. After the restart Rast was all over Götz, but he was unable to pass the Mercedes.

Race two was red-flagged after just a couple of meters following a massive crash at the start. Several cars were involved, but fortunately all drivers escaped serious injuries. Nicki Thiim was taken to hospital for checks.

At the restart, Rast had the lead, followed by Jaap van Lagen. Their teammates Kelvin van der Linde and Christian Engelhart took over during the pitstops, but their positions remained the same, resulting in victory for Audi.

Race 1 – 1. HTP Motorsport (Götz/Buhk), Mercedes, 2. Prosperia C. Abt Racing (Van der Linde/Rast) Audi, 3. GW IT Racing Team/Schütz Motorsport (Van Lagen/Engelhart) Porsche.

Race 2 – 1. Prosperia C. Abt Racing (Van der Linde/Rast) Audi, 2. GW IT Racing Team/Schütz Motorsport (Van Lagen/Engelhart) Porsche, 3. PIXUM Team Schubert (Baumann/Hürtgen), BMW.

Photo: DPPI

Photo: DPPI

FFSA GT Tour
The Bugatti circuit in Le Mans played host to the opening round of the 2014 French GT season.

In the first race of the season, IMSA Performance Matmut started from pole position and the Porsche led most of the race. Five minutes before the end, Mike Parisy successfully attacked Nicolas Armindo and took the lead, Grégory Guilvert followed Parisy to take second place. The top three finished the race separated by just four seconds.

Race two saw the Duqueine Engineering Ferrari 458 Italia of Jean-Claude Police and Soheil Ayari clinching victory on a wet Bugatti circuit. On wets Ayari pulled away from the rest of the field, the gap 30 seconds as Ayari came in to hand over to Police. That gap grew to nearly 50 seconds after the stops, until Gilles Vannelet moved into second and started to chase the leader. He brought the gap back to 10 seconds at the finish.

Race 1 – 1. Sebastien Loeb Racing (Hassid/Parisy), Audi, 2. Sainteloc Racing (Hallyday/Guilvert) Audi, 3. IMSA Performance Matmut (Narac/Armindo) Porsche.

Race 2 – 1. Duqueine Engineering (Police/Ayari), Ferrari, 2. Sport Garage (Vannelet/Lorgere-Roux), Audi, 3. Team Speed Car (Lecuyer/Abril), Audi.

Belgian Racing Car Championship
The Belgian Racing Car Championship had a bit of an old school Belcar feeling this weekend during the opening round at Zolder. There were 29 cars on the grid including an ex-works Corvette C6.R GTE for Selleslagh Racing Team.

The Corvette started from pole, took the lead into the first corner, but lost the lead as a result of Balance of Performance pit stops. The Corvette had to make a seven minute stop, the GT3 cars ‘only’ three minutes and 50 seconds.

A strong run by Maxime Soulet wasn’t enough to make up the time lost in the pit. 20 minutes before the end of the race the safety car was deployed after a crash of the NSC Motorsports Lamborghini and a couple of minutes before the official end the race was red-flagged.

Race – 1. Curbstone/FMA Racing (Vervisch/Verdonck) Ferrari, 2. PK Carsport (Kumpen/Longin/Belien), Audi, 3. Belgium Racing (Derdaele/Heyer/Maassen) Porsche.

Marcel ten Caat (@marceltencaat) is a contributor to Sportscar365 and other publications including Autosport.nl.

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