Magny-Cours Sprint Cup Race Red-Flagged for Blattner Crash

The second GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup race at Magny-Cours has been red-flagged following a crash for Dustin Blattner at the Adelaide Hairpin.

Blattner had been leading the Bronze Cup division after 25 minutes in the No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo when he hit the barriers hard approaching the hairpin, after making contact with the No. 87 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Rinat Salikhov, that won the class in Saturday’s race.

The impact scattered debris all along the track with race director Niels Wittich deciding that a red flag was needed to repair the barriers and clear the circuit.

The red flag came just before the pit window was about to open and the pole-sitting No. 7 Comtoyou Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Nicki Thiim was leading by around five seconds at the time of the stoppage.

But he has been handed a ten-second penalty for being out of position at the start when Thiim did not drive over the grid lines.

This meant that the No. 59 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Marvin Kirchhoefer was effectively the net leader.

The front pair were well clear of the No. 84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase in third, who was successfully defending from the No. 80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Ricardo Feller.

It had also been a tricky start to the race for the No. 32 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO that had originally qualified fastest before being demoted to the back of the grid for using too much boost.

Kelvin van der Linde had climbed to 25th when he tangled with Bronze Cup leader Peter Dempsey’s Ziggo Sport Tempesta Porsche at Adelaide Hairpin, which broke the BMW’s front suspension and put the points leader out of the race.

When the race is restarted there will be 35 minutes remaining.