Ferrari and Audi champs, but Merc wins
Ferrari and Audi divided Intercontinental GT Challenge title honours for 2021 between them as the ASP Mercedes squad won the postponed Kyalami
9 Hours season finale last Saturday.
AF Corse Ferrari pair Come Ledogar and Alessandro Pier Guidi were crowned drivers’ champions at the end of the three-round series, while Audi claimed the manufacturers’ prize. But it was the ASP Mercedes-amg GT3 shared by Raffaele Marciello, Jules Gounon and Timur Boguslavskiy that came out on top in South Africa, beating the Ferrari 488 GT3 of Ledogar, Pier Guidi and Miguel Molina by 15 seconds.
The battle for second behind the Mercedes ended up deciding the destination of the drivers’ title. The chances of Ledogar and Pier Guidi took a blow when their Ferrari was hit with a track-limits drivethrough penalty, but a mid-race safety car bunched up the pack and allowed Pier Guidi to make what proved to be the critical pass on the WRT Audi of Mattia Drudi for second.
Nicklas Nielsen had led the points with Pier Guidi and Ledogar but was tactically shuffled into the other Ferrari, which dropped out with gearbox problems.
Audi also split its contenders by switching Christopher Haase to the Wrtrun R8 LMS GT3. A late spin for Haase promoted the Sainteloc Racing stablemate to third, allowing Markus Winkelhock and Patric Niederhauser (who shared with Kelvin van der Linde) to take second in the points.