Lappalainen, Green Storm to Maiden Sprint Cup Win in Race 2

Konsta Lappalainen and Ben Green delivered a commanding victory for Emil Frey Racing in the second race of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup weekend at Hockenheim.

Green took the No. 14 Ferrari 296 GT3 to the Swiss squad’s first Sprint Cup win since June 2021 by finishing 6.333 seconds clear of the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3.

Lappalainen started the race from fourth but got by WRT driver Dries Vanthoor for third on the opening lap, which then allowed him to move up even further when Ricardo Feller’s No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II suffered suspension failure.

Feller ran second behind race leader Luca Engstler but was forced to retire, promoting Lappalainen and Vanthoor to second and third ahead of Mattia Drudi and Maro Engel.

An issue with the right front wheel at the mandatory pitstop then cost Liqui-Moly Team Engstler the race lead when Engstler came in to hand the No. 6 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 over to Max Hofer.

As a result, Green joined the race in the lead ahead of Charles Weerts and the No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lucas Auer.

As Weerts and Auer battled over second, it allowed Green to pull out a gap en route to his and Lappalainen’s first overall victory in Sprint Cup competition.

Weerts remained clear of Auer by 0.575 seconds with the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG of Jules Gounon and Maximilian Goetz classified fourth.

The No. 7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, which Drudi shared with Nicolas Baert, initially crossed the line fourth but was dropped to sixth after a time penalty.

As a result, the No. 30 Team WRT BMW of Calan Williams and Sam de Haan was promoted to fifth, also securing a Silver Cup class win in the process.

Lorenzo Patrese and Lorenzo Ferrari secured Gold Cup honors aboard the No. 88 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi ahead of the No. 159 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo driven by Benjamin Goethe and Tom Gamble.

The overall top ten was completed by the No. 111 CSA Racing Audi and Phil Keen and Ezequiel Perez Companc aboard the No. 90 Madpanda Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.

Keen crossed the line 0.832 seconds ahead of the No. 991 Century Motorsport BMW, which took the Bronze Cup win with Dan Harper and Darren Leung.