The FIA Court of Appeal has decided upon a long-standing matter with Championship implications for the 2023 International GT Open.
Their decision sees Sam de Haan and Charlie Fagg named as the Drivers Champions, replacing the previously announced Christopher Haase and Simon Reicher, though Haase & Reicher’s Eastalent Racing squad do retain the Team’s Championship.
The issue at hand goes back to the Sunday race at the Red Bull Ring on 10 September that saw the result affected by an extraordinary series of events triggered by no fewer than three Safety Car deployments within the mandatory pit window.
The confusion caused saw the race result impacted substantially but after an appeal to the event Stewards from Team Motopark was rejected, points were allocated and pit stop success ‘penalties’ were applied according to the results at the flag that were implemented for the next meeting at Monza.
So far so clear – until that was for the final double-header at Barcelona when it became clear, to many involved for the first time, that a further appeal against the result at Red Bull Ring had been lodged by Team Motopark and had been heard and decided by the relevant Spanish sporting body RFEdA, the race results of the Sunday race in Austria would be annulled.
The Championship-deciding weekend (with the points from the second race at Red Bull Ring removed from the standings) saw Eastalent Racing’s Audi, crewed by Christopher Haase and Simon Reicher score a win and a sixth place to claim the Drivers and team’s titles on count back from Team Motopark with Optimum Motorsport’s Pro-class Mclaren a very close third for Charlie Fagg and Sam de Haan.
A further appeal by Optimum to the decision of the National Court of Appeal of RFEdA though has been successful, and whilst the full judgement is still to be published it is understood to have been made based on the process followed in hearing the initial appeal, the results at Red Bull Ring have therefore been reinstated and the points adjusted accordingly.
The FIA ICA decision does not impact the final results in the classes, with Marco Pulcini and Eddie Cheever (AF Corse Ferrari) winning in Pro-Am and Heiko Neumann and Timo Rumpfkeil (Motopark Mercedes) taking the Am honours.
The Champions will be crowned at a rescheduled Awards ceremony in Madrid on 20 January.
