Race 1 of the GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club at Hockenheim saw W&S Motorsport’s Hendrik Still and Max Kronberg score an impressive lights-to-flag victory.
Alexander Hartvig and Nathan Schaap took maximum Silver Cup points by finishing P2 overall in the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche, while Julien Piguet and Alban Varutti made it a perfect Porsche triple by winning Am Cup for the seventh time this season. What’s more, this result secured the 2023 Am championship for the #10 AVR-Avvatar 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS.
The huge 44-car field got underway cleanly and, in a first half hour without any major incidents, the #30 W&S Motorsport Porsche defended his lead with confidence. Behind, the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche battled it out for P2 with the #77 Elite Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 (Rattican/Emson) and the #3 Team Speedcar Audi R8 (Lariche/Consani) made some highly entertaining moves to climb up to fourth place.
The top four emerged out of the Pit Window in that exact same order, and the ever stronger #17 V8 Racing Chevrolet Camaro (Rappange/Herremans) wanted a piece of the action up front as well. Close racing in true GT4 European Series fashion followed, but then an overly optimistic move by the #3 Team Speedcar Audi ended in drama, taking the #17 Chevrolet out of the race with him and causing a Safety Car procedure with 20 minutes left on the clock.
When the lights went back to green seven minutes later, the #77 Elite Motorsport McLaren was not able to withstand the pressure any longer and dropped well out of podium reach. The #110 Autosport GP LS Group Performance Alpine (Cauhaupe/Tirman) and #4 BCMC Motorsport powered by EastSide Motorsport Mercedes-AMG (De Fulgencio/Gogollok) took advantage, as did Gabriele Piana, charging frantically to move the #2 Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport BMW M4 he had taken over from Michael Schrey up into the top five.
When an incident involving multiple cars caused a red flag with just four minutes left on the clock, Race 1 came to a premature end and all positions were fixed in place. That awarded the well-deserved overall and Pro-Am victory to Hendrik Still and Max Kronberg in the #30 W&S Motorsport Porsche, and Silver Cup honours to Hartvig/Schaap in the #22 Allied-Racing 718 Cayman.
Meanwhile, Guilvert/Hamon had managed to claim second place in Pro-Am (P9 overall) in their #42 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT4, bringing this season’s Pro-Am championship crown ever closer. And as the dust settled, no more doubts remained about the Am championship: with their seventh Am Cup win out of nice races this season, Piguet/Varutti secure the class title for AVR-Avvatar in the #10 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS!
Race 2
The second race of the weekend went the way of another Porsche team, with Allied-Racing’s Alexander Hartvig Nathan Schaap taking the spoils as Audi outfit Saintéloc Junior Team secured the Pro-Am Cup championship
Race 2 got underway with 38 cars taking the start, after a handful of crews were not able to join following the late accident in Race 1. The #17 V8 Racing Chevrolet led the way from pole position, but once the leading car had picked up a double penalty, there was no stopping the Porsches taking another triple category win at the German track.
In the early stages of Race 2, it was Alban Varutti who displayed some truly spirited driving to bring the freshly crowned #10 AVR-Avvatar Porsche Cayman into contact with the front runners, before handing over to Julien Piguet who finished the job with a solid fifth overall. This was yet another dominant Am Cup victory for the duo, leaving the #442 W&S Motorsport Porsche (Dawson/Xavier) and W&D Racing Team BMW (Meloni/Meloni) far behind.
Leading up to the pit window, the pole-sitting #17 V8 Racing Chevrolet Camaro came under attack from the Caymans behind, but was able to fend off every move by the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche (Hartvig/Schaap) and the #94 SRS Team Sorg Rennsport Porsche (Ekelchik/Möller-Madsen). After emerging out of the pit window well in the lead, it turned out the Chevrolet had picked up a five-second penalty for track limits – and another 11-second penalty for short pitstop.
That put the #17 Chevrolet out of contention for good and opened the door for the entire Porsche fleet following behind. Exciting battles emerged, and in an entirely uninterrupted race full of elbows-out action, the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche (Hartvig/Schaap) came out on top. The #30 W&S Motorsport Porsche looked all set to take P2, but Hendrik Still and Max Kronberg finally had to settle for P3, still concluding a perfect Pro-Am weekend for them.
Second overall was claimed, in the very late stages, by man-on-a-mission Benjamin Lariche, who had taken over the #3 Team Speedcar Audi from Robert Consani. That brought the Audi back from the DNF in Saturday’s Race 1, but more importantly, bagged some very important points to stay within Silver championship reach against the #2 and #12 BMW crews of Piana/Schrey and Edgar/Besler respectively. Both the Bavarian GT4 cars were struggling to find pace all weekend, finally coming home in 13th and 8th overall.
With the Pro-Am win safely in the hands of the #30 Porsche, Grégory Guilvert and Christophe Hamon knew exactly what they had to do in the #42 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT4. The French crew picked their fights carefully, steered well clear of any kind of trouble and finally finished third in Pro-Am Cup, one place behind the #36 Code Racing Development Alpine A110 GT4 EVO of Leclerc/Bouvet. Mission accomplished for Guilvert/Hamon, who have been crowned 2023 Pro-Am champions with the Saint-Étienne-based team.
After an action-packed weekend at Hockenheim, there are just two GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club races left on the schedule at the season finale at Barcelona, with the competitive action scheduled for Saturday, September 30th and Sunday, October 1st.
