Ram Racing appeared to be sitting pretty going into the second part of the 2015 12 Hours of Mugello. But in the end it was the #7 HB Racing Team Herberth Porsche 997 GT3 R of Daniel Allemann, Robert Renauer, Ralf Bohn and Alfred Renauer that would end up victorious after a near faultless drive in the final two thirds of the race after bad luck struck the Ram Racing team.
The HB crew took the lead off the Ram Racing SLS immediately after the restart, with the Mercedes of Tom Onslow-Cole getting bogged down off the line.
The Black Pearl Racing Ferrari 458 of Pierre Kaffer also managed to squeeze past Onslow-Cole from the start, and eventually took the lead for a few laps. The car would later suffer from fuel injection issues however, which ended the team’s chances of winning the race with just under seven hours remaining.
It was a really promising first outing for the team, who showed real pace throughout, and in the end, they were rewarded to a certain degree, coming home a distant fourth.
At the head of the field though, there was a thrilling scrap between the HB Racing Porsche and Ram Mercedes, with Onslow-Cole taking the lead at various points during the opening few hours. An rather unlucky turn of events effectively ended their hopes of winning though, which gave HB Racing a lot of breathing room which would last the remainder of the race.
HB Racing came in for a regular stop, but the Code 60 flags came out for a third time, but only briefly, and just as the Porsche entered pit-lane because cones at turn 9 needed replacing. This meant HB gained a lot of time while the rest of the field circulated on their limiters, which included the hard charging Ram Mercedes. Adam Christodoulou decided to bring the car in during this time to salvage the time lost, but got caught up in the queue at the refuelling bays, which lost them further precious seconds.
To make matters worse, the Code 60 period was so brief, that the green flags came out as the Porsche of Robert Renauer exited the pit-lane. It cost the Ram guys almost two laps.
Christodoulou attempted to make up for lost time, running the car ragged as the race got into it’s final few hours, but the closest they came was back to within a minute and a half. A costly stop-go penalty was handed to them however, to which the drivers never recovered from in the final few hours.
In the end the winning margin was just under a lap as the HB Porsche crossed the line in front of the jubilant team on the pit wall, just after the Ram Mercedes un-lapped itself on the final tour. The team made almost no mistakes all weekend, and cruised to victory as a consequence.
Hofor Racing and their #9 Mercedes ended up making up the remaining podium spot, after attrition hit the GDL Racing Mercedes SLS which finished fifth, losing out to the Black Pearl Ferrari on the very last lap of the race! The Scuderia Praha Ferrari also never factored, failing to fully recover from losing a lap in the first part of the race a day earlier.
Outside of the A6 class, the 997 category was also hotly contested all weekend. The Ruffier Racing Porsche of Paul & Patrice Lafarge and Gabriel Abergel edged out the #63 Lorient Racing 997 by just over a lap in the end after many squabbles throughout. The pair would eventually come home 6th and 7th overall.
After a great showing at Dubai, Optimum Motorsport continued their form, by winning the SP3 class by three laps with their #163 Ginetta G55 of Adrian Barwick, Bradley Ellis and Flick Haigh when problems hit their main challengers towards the end of the race. The #170 Speedworks Aston Martin ended up finishing second in the competitive class.
“The team were on top form again, a series of slick pit stops and good strategy were key again to keeping us in contention,” said Team Principle Shaun Goff. “It was a relatively clean race; some Code-60s worked for us some against us. The key moment for me was all three drivers pace enabled us to pull back the two lap deficit and build a two lap lead.I’m really happy with our performance and we’re chuffed with the win.”
The rest of the class winners were as follows:
A6 Am: #10 Hofor Racing – Michael Kroll, Chantal Kroll, Roland Eggimann, Kenneth Heyer, Christiaan Frankenhout
Cup1: #73 Bonk Motorsport – Liesette Braams, Michael Schrey, Michael Bonk, Emin Akata
A5: #75 Hofor-Kuepperracing – Bernd Küpper, Martin Kroll, Lars Zander
SP2: #91 MARC Cars Australia – Keith Kassulke, Jake Camilleri, Peter Leemhuis, Ryan McLeod
A3T: #98 NKPP Racing – Harry Hilders, Roger Grouwels
A2: #115 Team K-Rejser – Jacob Kristensen, Jan Engelbrecht, Per Poulsen
The next round of the 2015 24 Hour Series is the 12 Hours of Zandvoort on the 29th and 30th of May.
Stephen Kilbey
