Lionspeed GP win in eventful, red-flagged GTWC EU Magny-Cours Race two

Credit: SRO/JEP

The No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche of Bastian Buus and Ricardo Feller returned to the top step of the podium, prevailing in Magny-Cours' second GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) Sprint Cup race, after penalties for No.32 and No.7 cars opened up the chance.

As it happened

With the pole sitting No.32 Team WRT BMW losing all its laptimes due to failing scrutineering, Nicki Thiim in the No.7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin started from pole, but he did not make the best out of it, as despite retaining the lead on track, he received a ten second penalty for a jump start.

This meant that the effective leader was now the No.59 Garage 59 McLaren of Marvin Kirchöfer who got past Christopher Haase in the No.84 Eastalent Audi for second.

The start was incident free, but this was not the case for all of the opening laps, as further back, an incident involving multiple cars occured around eight minutes in, with the No.222 2seas Mercedes of Charles Dawson temporarily ending up with another car's bumper hanging off it.

A short while later, Van der Linde who had gained a dozen of places in the opening laps, was also involved in an incident, with the No.69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Ben Green, the BMW driver spinning the Briton round at the last chicane.

Up front Thiim could not get away from Kirchöfer, who maintained similar pace to the Dane, with the pair getting gradually away from Haase, who was under pressure by the No.80 Lionspeed GP of Ricardo Feller.

Around the 20 minutes in mark, a Full Course Yellow was called, as Van der Linde's race came to a premature end, after contact with yet another car, that being the No.93 Ziggo Motorsport Tempesta Racing Porsche of Peter Dempsey, with the championship leader and Team WRT as a whole not having a great weekend in France.

Straight after racing conditions returned, another FCY was called, as Dustin Blattner in the No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari ended up damaged and beached in turn five. As debris was all over the area around the Adelaide hairpin, race control decided to red-flag the race, to allow marshalls the time to clean the track of any debris all round it.

Replays showed that the incident occured after Blattner had contact with the No.87 Winward Racing Mercedes of Rinat Salikhov, with the latter swerving slightly to the right after initial contact was made by the Ferrari, with it losing control and smashing head-on into the concrete barrier before the Adelaide hairpin.

After a red-flag period lasting several minutes, racing resumed with two laps behind the safety car and then green flag conditions, with the pit-stop window opening shortly after that, initially for Bronze and Silver cars. At that moment the No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi of Dylan Pereira was seen slowing down with a puncture, eventually making it back to the pits.

With the window opening for Pro and Gold cars after a few minutes, the leaders made their pitstops, with leader Thiim serving his ten-second penalty and the Lionspeed GP managing to undercut their way to the lead, with Bastian Buus now behind the wheel, also helped by a slow stop for the No.59 McLaren.

Six seconds seperated him and second placed Silver cup leader Matisse Lismont in the No.30 Team WRT BMW, who himself had a comfortable gap to third placed Thomas Neubauer, in the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari.

Credit: SRO/JEP

Neubauer eventually lost out on a podium position, thanks to the exploits of Luca Engstler in the No.96 Rutronik Lamborghini, with a compromised exit to turn two with less than ten minutes to go, providing the German with the perfect chance to get by the Ferrari for third.

Another notable late-race incident occured between Tomaso Mosca in the No.51 AF Corse Ferrari and Alessio Picariello in the No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche, similar to what happened between Salikhov and Blattner, but with the Porsche thankfully escaping any harm, with both drivers subsequently receiving five-second time penalties.

This provided for a good finale, that Bastian Buss crossed the line first in, marking Lionspeed GP's second Sprint Cup win this season, with Matisse Lismont second in the No.30 Team WRT BMW, marking a stunning result for the Silver cup winners, as Luca Engstler completed the podium.

Gold Cup honours went to the No.111 CSA Racing McLaren that finished in sixth overall, while Bronze was won by the No.991 Paradine Competition BMW that finished in 23rd overall.

Results of GTWC EU Race one - Top 10 overall

1st No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche (Feller, Buus)

2nd No.30 Team WRT BMW (Montenegro, Lismont) - Silver cup winners

3rd No.96 Rutronik Racing Lamborghini (Engstler, Niederhauser)

4th No.50 AF Corse Ferrari (Neubauer, Leclerc)

5th No.84 Eastalent Racing Audi (Haase, Reicher)

6th No.111 CSA Racing McLaren (Kell, Rougier) - Gold cup winners

7th No.59 Garage 59 McLaren (MacDonald, Kirchhöfer)

8th No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes (Juncadella, Gounon)

9th No.46 Team WRT BMW (Rossi, Hesse)

10th No.51 AF Corse Ferrari (Mosca, Zagazeta)