Vanthoor Trolls The Field
Laurens Vanthoor’s social media ‘game’ has always been strong but the Porsche Factory racer and Macau Toro Racing driver excelled himself last night, fuelled by a little frustration over the BoP doled out to the Porsche 911 GT3R and after being out-dragged by both BMW and AMG in the GT World Cup Qualifying race yesterday he responded with some humour – with an edge.
The post below appeared on Twitter and Instagram prompting a mix of astonishment and mirth as some appeared to be taken in by a little bit of photoshop, Vanthoor making the point with humour that the Porsche is lacking some straight-line speed.
Utilising the #911GT3RTouring moniker kept the humour completely ‘on-brand’ and, despite his concern, expressed to the DSC Editor this morning that “I thought I’d have someone on the phone within 20 minutes” – I can report that the response from his boss was everything you might hope for, Thomas Laudenbach, hosting a media dinner laughed out loud as he was shown the post!
The Porsches will start today’s race complete with rear wings!
Tomorrow we gamble! pic.twitter.com/cmJJ3gKhNz
— Laurens Vanthoor (@VanthoorLaurens) November 18, 2023
Goodbye Kitty
As confirmed yesterday evening here, the Hello Kitty-liveried Audi of Uno Racing has been withdrawn from today’s race after suffering chassis damage in the Qualifying race yesterday, Adderly Fong brushed the outside wall at Mandarin before suffering a subsequent rear suspension failure which pitched the car into a high-speed impact with the barriers on drivers right.
Adderly is perfectly OK after the incident but the crowd favourite car is beyond immediate repair, despite the offer of assistance from Absolute Racing with parts and manpower.
Hongli Ye, again as trailed yesterday, received a 10-second penalty as punishment for his contact with Matteo Cairoli that put the #120 Porsche into the wall on lap one yesterday.
Thomas Preining’s elimination at the same point in his #28 911 GT3R was regarded by the stewards as not being connected to the contact between the other two Porsches.
The R&B Racing Porsche driver will start from 16th on today’s grid, the now-repaired Porsche pair will form the back row of the now 19-car grid.
