No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi wins wet thriller in GTWC EU Barcelona Race One as Lionspeed GP duo are crowned Sprint champions
In what turned out to be a fantastic GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) Barcelona Race One, with lots of unpredictability, battles and some interruption, the Gold cup No.99 Tresor Attempto Audi was the winner, while results meant the coronation of new Sprint Cup champions.
As it happened The race began with a wet Barcelona circuit, courtesy of a downpour that began right before the race, with the officials announcing two formation laps in order for the drivers to acclimatise properly.
At the start the Bronze No.222 2seas Mercedes in the hands of Kiern Jewiss grabbed the lead from the No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche of Bastian Buus, who was as careful as possible given the championship picture.
The Dane also lost out to the No.71 AF Corse Ferrari of Felix Hirsiger, the No.74 Kessel Ferrari of Dennis Marschall and the fast-starting No.991 Paradine BMW of Augusto Farfus. Further behind Lucas Auer in the No.48 Winward Mercedes had gained an astonishing 11 places during the first racing lap, ending it ninth.
Right before the end of lap two, Marschall pulled off a stunner of a move to grab second from Hirsiger, passing him around the outside of the penultimate corner and tried to also take the lead from Jewiss, with the two of them making contact as the latter ran him wide at the brakes of turn four, with the Mercedes receiving some rear-bodywork damage.
They both retained their places though and Marschall took the lead a lap later, with some driver further down the field suffering spins. One such was the No.58 Garage 59 McLaren of Tom Fleming, which fell down the order after a brilliant start.
Meanwhile Buus continued treading backwards, losing out to Sven Muller's No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche, the stunning Auer's Mercedes and Marvin Dienst's No.87 Winward Mercedes.
That was right before the Safety Car was deployed, after the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Neubauer spun round in sector three and collected the No.66 Tresor Attempto Audi of Ariel Levi, with both retiring right on the spot.
This proved detrimental to leader Marschall who saw his massive early lead of five plus seconds disappear.
After seven minutes action resumed, with Marschall resuming his lightning pace, while the No.71 Ferrari had an off, which threw Hirsiger down to 11th, although still in the Silver lead. Conditions were right on the limit of undrivable due to both the water on track and -of course- the spray, with many throughout the field struggling.
25 minutes in, the mandatory pit-stop and driver-swap window opened, with most of the Pro/Gold field entering into the pits. This proved to be a disastrous one for the No.14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari, as after Konsta Lappalainen was spun round early on by Mikkel Pedersen, it then was hit after an unsafe release by the No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche and suffered major rear-right suspension damage and was done for the day.
With 28 minutes to go though the race turned on its head, as the race officials decided to red-flag it, just after the No.55 Dinamic Porsche of Loris Cabirou spun off, the last in a series of spins and off-track excursions, effectively giving the 13 Bronze and Silver cars ahead of Pro leader Maro Engel's No.48 Mercedes a free pit-stop and driver change.
After the conditions for racing were judged to have improved, the race restarted with two laps behind the safety car, after a red-flag period of roughly 20 minutes, with all the Bronze-rated drivers now in their seats.
This meant Constantin Dressler led the field out of the pits in the No.74 Ferrari, followed by Charles Dawson in the No.222 Mercedes and the No.991 BMW of Darren Leung, while the No.2 Porsche of Dorian Boccolacci and the No.48 Mercedes of Engel, now favourites for the win, rounded out the top five.
When green flag conditions resumed, Dressler got off well, with grip still not optimal, with Boccolacci benefitting from some contact between Dawson and Leung to get into second, whilst further behind Engel briefly lost control of his Mercedes, falling to seventh.
Right at the same time in turn four, Luca Engstler in the No.96 Rutronik Lamborghini, hit Ben Green's No.69 Emil Frey Ferrari, who in turn hit the No.27 Kessel Ferrari of Marco Pulcini.
A short while later, after a brief but brave effort, Dressler surrendered the lead to Boccolacci, with the Ferrari also eventually losing second to the No.99 Audi of Alex Aka and third to the resurgent No.80 Porsche of Ricardo Feller after battling as hard as he could, although he still was in the Bronze class lead.
Boccolacci enjoyed a near five-second lead out front, before his race was ruined by a stop & go penalty, for the unsafe release which ended the No.14 Ferrari's race. The Frenchman served it right after a Full Course Yellow for the recovery of the crashed No.35 Walkenhorst Aston Martin.
This turn of events left Alex Aka in the No.99 Tresor Attempto Audi in both the Gold and Overall lead, four seconds ahead of second place Feller and seven ahead of Engstler in third. Meanwhile the battle for places four to eight was franetic, with Engel and Chris Lulham having contact, before the No.3 Verstappen Mercedes driver briefly lost control, falling to 12th.
Engel was off the track himself a bit later when battling Dressler, with the duo falling to seventh and eighth, with the latter losing the Bronze lead to Peter Dempsey's No.93 Porsche.
This combination of events also proved the nail in the coffin for Dani Juncadella's title chances, as this alongside the other contender's results, meant Bastian Buus and Ricardo Feller were crowned Overall Sprint Cup champions, after Feller crossed the line to finish second, behind Overall and Gold race winner Aka and ahead of third place Engstler.
Results of GTWC EU Barcelona Race One - Top 10 overall
1st No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi (Pereira, Aka) - Gold winners
2nd No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche (Buus, Feller)
3rd No.96 Rutronik Racing Lamborghini (Engstler, Niederhauser)
4th No.59 Garage 59 McLaren (Macdonald, Loake)
5th No.93 Ziggo Tempesta Porsche (Cheever, Dempsey) - Bronze winners
6th No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche (Boccolacci, Muller)
7th No.48 Winward Racing Mercedes (Auer, Engel)
8th No.77 KPX Motorsport BMW (Pittard, Rappange)
9th No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari (Marschall, Dressler)
10th No.32 Team WRT BMW (Weerts, Van der Linde)
*Silver winners were the No.5 Optimum Motorsport McLaren duo of Guilherme Oliveira and Mikey Porter.
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