Sainteloc Audi Wins Hockenheim Endurance Cup Thriller

Patric Niederhauser, Christopher Mies and Lucas Legeret won a thrilling three-hour race at Hockenheim to end a five-year win drought for Sainteloc Junior Team in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup.

Niederhauser broke free from his rivals after a final-hour safety car to bring the No. 25 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to the line 2.6 seconds ahead of Dennis Marschall, who shared the No. 66 Attempto Racing Audi with Markus Winkelhock and Kim-Luis Schramm.

Dinamic Motorsport’s Porsche trio of Alessio Picariello, Klaus Bachler and Matteo Cairoli completed the podium after a late puncture for Tresor by Car Collection’s Christopher Haase denied a 1-2-3 result for Audi Sport customer teams.

Sunday’s race, which marked the Endurance Cup’s first visit to Hockenheim, contained lots of drama as several key contenders in the Pro class fell by the wayside or hit trouble.

The pole-sitting No. 32 Audi from Team WRT led for most of the opening stint until Charles Weerts encountered a gearbox issue that prevented his car from downshifting.

Additionally, the top two entries in the Endurance Cup standings retired, maintaining an 11-point margin between Akkodis ASP’s No. 88 Mercedes-AMG crew and two members of the No. 71 Iron Lynx Ferrari lineup heading into the Barcelona season finale.

The No. 71 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 was eliminated after half an hour when teammates Alessio Rovera, who was subbing for Daniel Serra, and James Calado came together.

Calado, who was attempting to out-brake GetSpeed Performance’s Maro Engel into Turn 11, struck Rovera at the apex which caused both Ferraris to spin into the gravel.

That presented a golden opportunity for Akkodis ASP to increase its championship lead but Raffaele Marciello, Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon were denied a likely points finish when their Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo ground to a halt with 20 minutes to go.

Engel, Luca Stolz and Steijn Schothorst were the best Mercedes-AMG crew in fourth, one place ahead of WRT’s Valentino Rossi, Frederic Vervisch and Nico Mueller.

The race started with a huge accident on the opening lap for JOTA driver Rob Bell, whose McLaren speared into the left-side barriers before Turn 7 after a touch from the No. 19 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo.

Bell walked away from the incident, which resulted in a lengthy safety car period for the cleanup. The intervention was then prolonged when the safety car bizarrely left the road at Turn 6.

Onboard footage from Weerts’ Audi showed it continuing at high speed into the gravel rather than turning right for the hairpin.

A spokesperson for GTWC Europe organizer SRO Motorsports Group told Sportscar365 that a “technical issue” occurred, with no further elaboration on the incident’s cause.

Racing resumed just after the half-hour mark after a few laps under a replacement safety car, and Weerts led from Drudi in the Tresor by Car Collection Audi until his car’s technical gremlins took hold.

Drudi put huge pressure on Weerts throughout the stint, while Jack Aitken made a strong start in Emil Frey Racing’s No. 63 Lamborghini to assume second when the WRT driver fell back.

The No. 12 Tresor by Car Collection Audi remained ahead after the first of two scheduled pit stops, while the Lamborghini lost several places due to a pit box overshoot that impeded the refueling connection.

Schothorst moved into second for the GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG squad, while a strong service from Sainteloc brought Mies out in third after Legeret initially ran eighth.

Schothorst halved Luca Ghiotto’s initial seven-second advantage during the middle stint.

However, the GetSpeed driver ended up losing a position to a charging Mies, who pounced at the Sachs hairpin when Schothorst ran wide.

The middle hour included some entertaining battles for the other points positions with Schothorst, Silver Cup class leader Stuart White, Winkelhock in the Attempto Audi, Akkodis ASP’s Juncadella and WRT’s Vervisch all dicing with each other.

Vervisch was putting in a spirited recovery drive after former MotoGP star Rossi had an off-track moment on the first lap that caused him to lose at least 10 positions.

Mies got to within three seconds of race leader Ghiotto during the stint, but the Sainteloc Audi crucially emerged from its final stop in front of Tresor by Car Collection.

Audi factory drivers Niederhauser and Haase ran nose-to-tail for several laps before the Sainteloc driver eked out a second on his pursuer. The gradually increasing gap was then eliminated by a Full Course Yellow/safety car period with 37 minutes remaining

The FCY was called to retrieve Hugo Valente’s No. 11 Tresor by Car Collection Audi, which ran off into the Turn 1 tire barriers.

Niederhauser enjoyed the benefit of a backmarker between his Audi and Haase’s for the restart with 30 minutes to go, and was never challenged in the deciding stint as Haase’s attention turned to the pressure coming from Marschall.

The Attempto Racing Audi rose from seventh to third in the middle stint thanks to an excellent drive from Winkelhock, who made several key overtaking moves.

Attempto reached second when Haase’s tire issue took hold, while Dinamic’s No. 54 Porsche 911 GT3 R snuck onto the podium following an under-the-radar run.

Emil Frey Racing claimed Silver Cup class honors with its No. 14 Lamborghini, in which White, Konsta Lappalainen and Mick Wishofer finished seventh overall behind their teammates in the No. 63 Pro car.

Both crews gained a spot in the closing minutes when Dennis Lind brought JP Motorsport’s No. 111 McLaren into the pits with an unspecified terminal issue.

Frederik Schandorff, Ollie Millroy and Brendan Iribe won the Gold Cup in their Inception Racing McLaren, while Andrea Bertolini held off Dominik Baumann on the last lap to scoop the Pro-Am accolade for AF Corse’s No. 52 Ferrari crew.

RESULTS: 3H Hockenheim (provisional)