Garage 59 Leads Gulf Opening Hour; Pro Cars Take Stops

The opening hour of the Lenovo Gulf 12 Hour ended under Full Course Yellow due to a crash for Garage 59’s Shaun Balfe, while the Pro cars are spread throughout the field after taking their first Imposed Pit Stops early.

Balfe looped the No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo around exiting Turn 1 after 50 minutes of racing and made heavy contact with the barrier, severely damaging the car in the process.

It marked the second Full Course Yellow in the span of an hour, with the first for a bollard that had landed on the track surface and needed to be removed.

Garage 59 leads the race with its other McLaren, as the No. 88 machine runs in first place in the hands of Louis Prette ahead of the No. 4 Grove Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Stephen Grove.

Grove, however, pitted on the brink of the hour and is set to drop back somewhat, with the No. 2 HAAS RT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Miika Panu set to inherit second place.

Maro Engel started the No. 99 Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo from pole position and retained the lead from the No. 14 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG of Maximilian Goetz.

Engel, along with the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Dries Vanthoor, entered pit lane at the end of the opening lap to take their first of ten ‘Imposed Pit Stops’, which need to be 1 minute and 40 seconds in length.

The other three Pro entries followed in the following laps, promoting the top Pro-Am entries to the lead of the race.

The leading Pro car is now Vanthoor’s No. 46 car running in 11th place overall, leading Goetz’ No. 14 Mercedes-AMG in 12th and the No. 32 Team WRT machine in the hands of Sheldon van der Linde in 15th place.

The pair of GruppeM Racing cars run in 21st and 22nd, both having taken a second stop. However, the No. 77 machine appears to have suffered a setback, having entered the pits after the second Full Course Yellow emerged. Stops undertaken under FCY do not count towards the Imposed Pit Stop tally.