Grasser grabs overall victory

GRASSER RACING LAMBORGHINI PAIR Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart made up for missing out on the Blancpain Sprint Cup title by taking the overall

Blancpain GT Series title, and the Endurance Cup with Andrea Caldarelli.

In the Lamborghini Huracan GT3’S third season, the factory-blessed Grasser car was the class of the field in the early rounds, sweeping Monza (Endurance), Brands Hatch (Sprint) and Silverstone (Endurance), but lost ground in the Sprint Cup with opening lap incidents in qualifying races at Zolder and the Nurburgring.

The chief beneficiaries were Robin Frijns and Stuart Leonard, who gave the crack Team WRT Audi squad a second Sprint title in as many years. Frijns and improving Brit Leonard were a consistent presence in the top five for most of the year and took their only feature race win at a tense Nurburgring Sprint finale after their main rivals fell by the wayside.

Dries Vanthoor and Marcel Fassler emerged as late contenders after dominating the penultimate round in Hungary, but a pitlane violation cost them dearly when they had looked set to take victory and title at the Nurburgring. That came after the HTP Mercedes of pre-event favourite Maxi Buhk had run into the gravel while chasing Vanthoor, picking up a puncture and knocking himself and team-mate Franck Perera out of contention.

Misano (Sprint) double winners Buhk and Perera had also been in the hunt for the overall title and Endurance Cup, until a crash from co-driver Jimmy Eriksson at the Spa 24 Hours forced their retirement.

Bortolotti, Engelhart and Caldarelli didn’t finish there either due to a throttle damper problem and were made to sweat as Paul Ricard 1000Km winners Andy Soucek, Maxime Soulet and Vincent Abril (M-sport Bentley) racked up solid points by finishing second at Spa to the Sainteloc Audi of Markus Winkelhock, Christopher Haase and Jules Gounon.

But, when gearbox issue forced the Bentley out at Barcelona (it took consolation from winning the Endurance teams’ title), third in the enduro finale was enough for the Grasser crew.

TF Sport Aston Martin pair Jonny Adam and Ahmad Al Harthy won the Endurance Pro-am division, taking a class win at Monza.