BMW Team WRT Dominates Suzuka 1000km

Photo: BMW

BMW Team WRT scored a dominant victory in Sunday’s Suzuka 1000km, with Kelvin van der Linde taking the points lead in Intercontinental GT Challenge competition in the process.

Van der Linde, Raffaele Marciello and Charles Weerts picked up the German manufacturer’s third IGTC victory of the season, with the South African driver steering the No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO to the win by a 13.647-second margin over the second-placed No. 7 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurens Vanthoor.

It came in a commanding race for the pole-sitting BMW, which virtually led the entire six-and-a-half hour revived Japanese enduro.

Van der Linde and the Vincent Vosse-led WRT squad, meanwhile, picked up back-to-back Suzuka endurance wins, having won the 2019 edition in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo.

The No. 32 BMW’s biggest threat came from the No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which went off-strategy with just over two hours to go when Luca Stolz pitted for the car’s second-to-last stop.

However, the race’s seventh Full Course Yellow, which turned into a third safety car period, dashed hopes of a top finish for the Hong Kong-flagged squad as the competition all made stops while under the neutralization prior to the full safety car deployment.

Vanthoor’s co-driver Kevin Estre took over second during the same yellow due to a making shorter stop in the NewMan-liveried Porsche that they shared with Patrick Pilet.

Estre came within three seconds of the No. 32 BMW prior to the car’s final stop after a hard-fought battle with the No. 6 Origine Motorsport Porsche throughout the race that ultimately led to floor damage during Laurin Heinrich and Bastian Buus’ stints.

The No. 2 Johor Motorsports JMR Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims, Scott McLaughlin and Nicky Catsburg completed the overall and Pro class podium, despite a pre-race Balance of Performance hit.

Catsburg was entrenched in a fierce battle with Buus as well as the No. 31 WRT BMW of Max Hesse with just over an hour to go, initially dropping to fifth before carving his way back to third before the final round of stops.

Bronze Cup class honors went to the No. 10 Absolute Racing Porsche of Richard Lietz, Antares Au and Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Loek Hartog, which finished an impressive fourth overall and on the lead lap.

Lietz, who passed the No. 89 Team KRC BMW of Neil Verhagen for the class lead with three hours and 30 minutes to go, ended up with nearly a one-lap advantage following the first safety car period, but rebalanced in subsequent yellows.

Hartog emerged following the final round of pit stops ahead of Hesse and then passed the damaged Origine Porsche of Heinrich for fourth with less than 20 minutes to go, coming less than two seconds of Corvette factory driver Catsburg.

Hesse, meanwhile, was demoted to a sixth place result in the No. 31 WRT BMW after being handed a 12-second post-race time penalty for a collision with Heinrich.

It therefore has promoted the No. 6 Origine Porsche to fifth.

Maxime Martin, meanwhile, passed the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Kaku Ohta for seventh with less than five minutes to go.

Phantom Global Racing’s Pink Pig-liveried Porsche was elevated to eighth in the closing minutes with Patric Niederhauser at the wheel after bouncing back from a refueling issue early on and a right-front puncture late in the running.

Verhagen, meanwhile, brought the KRC BMW home in ninth, second in Bronze, with Ohta fading to tenth.

Third in the highly competitive Bronze class went to the No. 91 Herberth Motorsport Porsche, which was 11th overall and saw Ralf Bohn now tied for the lead of the IGTC Independent’s Cup with class winner Au.

The 75 Express Mercedes-AMG, featuring Kenny Habul, came home fourth in Bronze.

The No. 500 Team 5ZIGEN Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Yu Kanamaru, Takayuki Aoki and Yuya Motojima captured the Silver Cup win with a 15th place overall result.

Craft-Bamboo Racing’s No. 28 Mercedes-AMG of Jonathan Hui, Kevin Tse and Lexus factory driver on-loan Ben Barnicoat claimed a come-from-behind win in Pro-Am after a sensor failure forced Tse off track in qualifying.

The No. 360 Runup Sports Nissan of Masaaki Nishikawa, Atsushi Tanaka and Yusaku Shibata, meanwhile, took Am class honors after the AMAC Motorsport Type-991.2 Porsche, the only other car in the class, had multiple incidents.

RESULTS: Suzuka 1000km

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John