It was an eventful first race of the season for the International GT Open, with the Team Lazarus Bentley Continental, driven by a pair debuting in the series: Ivan Peklin, the 19-year-old Ukranian at his debut in GT3, and Bentley works driver Jordan Pepper, from South Africa taking the win.
After a win and two poles last year, the Lazarus Bentley began the season in the best possible way, eventually beating the two Inception McLarens 720S of Nick Moss-Joe Osborne and Brendan Iribe-Ollie Millroy, who beat the Balfe Audi R8 LMS of Shaun Balfe-Adam Carroll to third in the Pro-Am class.
Jens Liebhauser-Florian Scholze started the season as they finished last, winning in the Am class, this time with a Mercedes ran by AKM Motorsport. The HP Racing Lambo of McKansy- Seyffert and the other Mercedes of Giuseppe Cipriani, in the colours of Il Barone Rampante, completed the podium.
The race was marked by the two accidents in the first stint, with most the first half of the race behind the safety-car.
At the start, poleman Nico Bastian had to fight to keep the advantage ahead of Spinelli and Jordan, who took second in the initial string of corners, but drama struck right behind, as Schraml missed his braking point in turn 3 and hit the JP McLaren of Christian Klien, almost flying over it.
Luckily, there were no resulting injuries.
The first five laps were behind the safety car. Shortly after the restart, Pepper stole the lead from Bastian, but the green flag action only lasted for two laps before François Grimm lost control entering the Signes straight and hit the wall on the inside, with significant damage to his Boutsen Ginion Lambo R-EX. Again the safety-car was scrambled, while Seyffert had to pit with a puncture.
Peklin extended his lead to 6 seconds, with Sattler keeping second ahead of Moss, Millroy, Beretta and Soucek, who had a nice fight to pass Nemoto. In Am, Liebhauser passed Cipriani, who visited the pits on lap 25 with an ABS issue.
Saattler spun on lap 26 and dropped to 9th.
Peklin took the win ahead of the two Inception McLarens and Soucek, who bounced back to fourth in the closing laps.
