Stolz: “Good Race” for GetSpeed Despite Coming Up Short

Luca Stolz was encouraged by GetSpeed Performance’s second place in the 3 Hours of the Nürburgring despite coming up short against Akkodis ASP for the second time in Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup this season.

Stolz, Maro Engel and Fabian Schiller took their second podium of the year in Sunday’s three-hour contest, finishing just under two seconds behind the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Raffaele Marciello, Jules Gounon and Timur Boguslavskiy.

After Schiller reduced Boguslvskiy’s middle stint lead from around 13 seconds to under five, Stolz emerged from the final round of pit stops even closer to Gounon.

Stolz then sized up his fellow Mercedes-AMG factory driver but was unable to initiate an overtake despite getting to within four-tenths at one stage.

The German driver later explained that his Al Manar-badged GetSpeed car had been producing understeer which impacted his ability to attack when the gap was close.

Nonetheless, he was upbeat about the result and felt GetSpeed had a better shot at taking the win compared to its last second place behind ASP at the Paul Ricard 1000 km.

“In the beginning, I thought I had a chance because I felt I was a bit quicker when he came out of the pits,” Stolz told Sportscar365.

“Maybe if he got traffic and I had a bit of a run, I could pass him. But I felt like he had just less pickup when we passed cars and could clean the tire a bit quicker.

“He had a little bit more pace. In the end, I came back a little bit with lighter fuel because we struggled a bit with too much understeer.

“Whenever there is a lot of rubber on the track, it gets slower as it develops. I think we probably suffered a bit, but it was still a good race for us.

“We were a lot closer than at Paul Ricard to the No. 88, so at Barcelona we’ll try again.”

GetSpeed was surprised to be given the chance to try an undercut move on Akkodis ASP at the final round of pit stops after Boguslavskiy stayed out for longer than expected.

The Silver-rated driver continued for another lap before handing over to Gounon, which enabled Schiller to swap out for Stolz earlier and reduce the deficit to a second.

GetSpeed also applied the undercut at the first pit cycle to jump the Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R for second place.

“We expect that Timur does the least running of the three of them,” said Stolz.

“We tried to undercut. I think at this track it’s really beneficial because tire deg is quite high.

“In the past races, we didn’t see so many Full Course Yellows or safety cars, so you can always gain some track position. But in the end, it’s only P2.”

The result left Stolz pondering what it will take for GetSpeed to overcome the Akkodis ASP crew after twice finishing second to the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG this season.

“Yesterday I thought that we were maybe on the same pace, or a bit quicker in the dry,” he said.

“But in the morning they just did a really good qualifying: Lello [Raffaele Marciello] was proper on it. Qualifying was really difficult but they nailed it again.”