World of Sport: Blancpain GT; DTM; Australian Supercars; W Series; IMSA; Super GT; Formula Regional European Championship; Motogp
BLANCPAIN GT SERIES WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE
BRANDS HATCH (GBR) 4-5 MAY ROUND 1/5 You needed a Mercedes-amg GT3 to do well at Brands Hatch in the opening rounds of the newly christened Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe. And to keep out of trouble.
A win apiece for rival Mercedes teams Auto Sport Promotion and Black Falcon were the main talking points, but so too was the weather that affected qualifying and the difficulties of overtaking at the narrow Kent circuit, which perhaps contributed to a high level of damage.
Race one began with Black Falcon’s
Luca Stolz leading from pole, but contact between the Lamborghini Huracan of
Andrea Caldarelli and Steijn Schothorst’s Audi R8 LMS led to mayhem behind – in the melee Kim-luis Schramm’s R8 plunged into the gravel and collected the stranded Schothorst. Caldarelli was slapped with a 60-second stop-go penalty for causing the collision, which he served, only to pit a lap later claiming there was no point continuing having lost a lap thanks to the reprimand.
That left Stolz ahead of the Huracan of Mirko Bortolotti, but a demon set of laps by third-placed ASP driver Nico Bastian and a quick pitstop allowed co-driver Thomas Neubauer to exit the pitlane in the lead. Maro Engel, in for Stolz, chased hard but struggled in the dirty air of the leading car, forcing him to settle for second ahead of Bortolotti/christian Engelhart.
Race two had a jumbled grid thanks to rain at the end of the first flying lap of qualifying, plus Engelhart not setting a time after Bortolotti crashed at the end of Q1.
The race lost Markus Winkelhock to the gravel at the first corner when his R8 picked up a puncture from debris after contact between a pack of cars that claimed Tom Gamble’s R8 too. ASP polesitter Fabian Schiller led from Nick Foster’s R8 and Engel.
Contact between Frederic Vervisch’s R8 and David Perel in the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 caused the Belgian to spin and collect Andrea Bertolini’s Ferrari and the Audis of Christopher Haase, Dries Vanthoor and Rik Breukers. A full-course yellow became a safety-car period, with Schiller then being penalised for speeding, later rescinded.
Following the pitstops, Stolz led comfortably from Vincent Abril (in for Raffaele Marciello in their ASP Mercedes), but no sooner had Abril left the pitlane than he felt the clutch slipping. On lap 28 of the 39 he lost drive and was out of the fight.
That promoted Caldarelli/marco Mapelli to second, from Foster/schothorst’s rebuilt R8.