Enzo Ide and Rene Rast triumphed in another action-packed Blancpain Sprint Series encounter at Zandvoort. Sunday’s Main Race saw the #2 WRT Audi crew beat series newcomers Schubert BMW into second, while there was a popular home podium finish for Dutchman Jaap van Lagen, who was sharing the Team Herberth Porsche with Robert Renauer.
The rolling start was marred by a collision on the front straight. Towards the back of the field, ninth-place qualifier Roman Rusinov in the #3 WRT Audi was running alongside Mateusz Lisowski in the sister #4 car, but appeared to jink briefly to driver’s right as they powered down the straight. The car then snapped in the other direction, spearing into a blameless Fabio Onidi in the #60 Bhai Tech McLaren (who was sent crashing into the barriers) and forcing 16th-place starter Stefan Rosina, who’d made up a few places off the line, to take avoiding action in the #88 Reiter Lamborghini.
Rosina dropped to 15th behind the quickly deployed safety car, and then went through the pits to check for damage while it was still out. This put him 16th and last for the restart, which came at the end of lap three. Polesitter Proczyk held his lead in the #28 Grasser Lamborghini when the BMW safety car pulled in, but just as in the closing stages of yesterday’s qualifying race, Max Gotz in the #84 HTP Mercedes was right on his bumper.
Third after the restart was #2 WRT Audi man Ide, who’d challenged Gotz for second through the first few corners before the safety car came out, while Renauer was fourth in the Herbeth Porsche, ahead of Jager in the #76 Schubert BMW in fifth and Saturday podium finisher Cesar Ramos in the #1 WRT Audi in sixth.
The safety car period meant there was less than 15 minutes of green-flag racing before the pit window opened. Gotz remained just a few tenths behind Proczyk, while a recovering Rosina got past Armaan Ebrahim’s Fortec Mercedes for 15th on lap seven. In the mid-pack, Jager found a way past Renauer to take fourth through turn three. Jager then attacked Ide for third into Tarzan on lap 11. He couldn’t make it stick, but stayed right with the Belgian all the way around the rest of the lap and attempted a dive at Tarzan next time around, too.
With 35 minutes to, the pit window opened, setting up straight pit-stop battle between the Grasser and HTP mechanics, but Gotz elected to stay out for one more lap than Proczyk. The Austrian handed the #28 Lamborghini over to Jeroen Bleekemolen smoothly, but there was an issue with changing the rear tyres and the Dutchman was well out of contention for the win once the rest of the field’s stops had been completed. Bleekemolen then had an uncharacteristic spin on his out lap, topping off a disappointing race for yesterday’s winners.
Baumann in the #76 BMW just squeezed out in front of Ramos’ co-driver Lauren Vanthoor in the #1 Audi when they pitted together, while Gotz and Ide also came in at the same time. The Grasser Lamborghini’s troubles meant their co-drivers Buhk and Rast were now effectively battling for the lead, and Buhk just managed to squeeze out ahead of his fellow German.
With the majority of the front runners having completed their stops, the weather took a turn for the worse as a heavy rain shower started to fall. This allowed some cars – including the #34 ROAL BMW and #4 WRT Audi – the luxury of putting on wets without making a second stop.
This initially looked like good news for David Fumanelli (who’d taken over the #34 from Stefano Colombo) and Vincent Abril (who’d stepped in for Lisowski in the #4), but the rain didn’t last and they went backwards down the order as dry line started to appear once more. Audi men Vanthoor and Marc Basseng in the #5 elected to make second stops to change to wets, and they too would find themselves on the wrong tyre as the track dried out.
With 25 minutes to go, the rain eased off and Buhk, Rast and Baumann were lying first, second and third – all on slick tyres and a good 25 seconds ahead of the next cars. Abril and Fumanelli were fourth and fifth for now, with van Lagen sixth in the Herbeth Porsche started by Renauer.
Recovering from his spin, Bleekemolen had passed Grasser Racing team-mate Stephan Landmann and Nelson Piquet Jr (who was struggling on wets in the #30 Team Brasil BMW) to get up to seventh by lap 19.
With 20 minutes to go, Rast had closed right up on Buhk and was making half-moves into the braking zones at some of the corners. He finally went around the outside of the chicane in a superb move on lap 21 – Buhk allowing him just enough room not to crash.
Buhk – who later revealed he was struggling with a malfunctioning gearbox – now came under pressure for second from his 2012 HTP team-mate and GT3 European Series co-champion Baumann in the BMW. A delayed downshift caused Buhk to miss his braking point and he spun, allowing the #76 Schubert into second. Buhk’s troubles weren’t over, however, as the Mercedes became stuck in first gear after the spin. A quick ‘ctrl-alt-delete’ on the German’s part got it going again, but first had now become sixth in the space of a few laps for the #84 crew.
Up ahead, Van Lagen’s Porsche was working well in dry tyres on the damp conditions and he was soon past Fumanelli and Abril to move into a podium position. Buhk, too, would overhaul this pair by the chequered flag, salvaging 12 points for his and Gotz’s championship challenge.
Fumanelli and Abril’s troubles meant it would be Lamborghinis finishing fifth, sixth and seventh at the flag – Bleekemolen leading home team-mates Halek and Landmann (who won the Pro-Am category) and Kox completing a decent recovery drive in the #88 Reiter car after Rosina’s drama at the start.
Piquet Jr made slightly better work of running wet tyres on a dry track than Abril, and the Brazilian would finish in eighth ahead of the Frenchman at the flag. Abril and co-driver Lisowski were the first Silver Cup runners home once again, however, while Vanthoor was the first man home to have made a second stop to put on wets, rounding out the top 10 in the #1 WRT Audi.
At the front of the field, Baumann had pushed Rast hard for the lead initially after getting past Buhk, coming within half a second at one point, but in the end decided to settle for a fine second place in Schubert’s first Blancpain Sprint Series outing this year.
“It was really tricky out there, with some dry and wet patches all around the track,” he explained afterwards. “I gained on Rene and could push him hard, but there wasn’t much chance to overtake as it was still quite wet off the racing line, so I decided to take no risk and settle for second.” It was also a particularly good result Baumann’s co-driver Jager – a podium in his first-ever GT3 sprint race.
After the race, Rast’s co-driver Ide recalled difficult opening stint. “I really had to fight the car, but I managed to hold on to third by the time the stops came around,” he said. “The rain definitely helped us, and Rene did a brilliant job in his stint.”
Rast added “It was the same conditions as yesterday when it rained. I talked to the team on the radio about going to wets at the stop, but we decided against it. It was difficult not to hit Max [Buhk] when I was chasing him – he was a bit slower than me, I think he had lower tyre pressures. But it was all fair and he gave me space at the chicane. Then Baumann seemed to be right behind me in the space of one lap, but there was nowhere he could get by with it still being wet off the line.”
The next Blancpain Sprint Series event is at the Slovakiaring on 23-24 August.
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