ROWE Racing’s #998 BMW M4 GT3 stormed to victory in the opening round of the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe season at Paul Ricard today, with Augusto Farfus, Dan Harper and Max Hesse all taking maiden Endurance Cup wins in the process.
Farfus climbed from fifth to third on the opening lap, which became second after the #22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche 911 GT3.R (992) was awarded a black-and-orange flag for the pit crew leaving its grounding cable attached to the car at the opening round of stops.
Harper then pressurised the pole-sitting #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli, making the move for the lead at Turn 10 with 82 minutes of the three-hour race to go. Outside of the final pit cycle. From there the car was not challenged again as Hesse stretched the team’s winning margin to 13.519 seconds in the closing stages to give ROWE Racing the win in the opening round for the second consecutive season.
The team survived a brief scare though, as Farfus was investigated mid-race for overtaking Jules Gounon (#2 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo) off-track on the opening lap, but the stewards deemed no action necessary.
“The car was an absolute pleasure,” Harper told GT World post-race. “It was so fast and so consistent, and it’s a dream to work with these guys and with ROWE.”
Caldarelli’s teammate Mirko Bortolotti controlled the opening hour, which was interrupted by four Safety Cars – two for debris, one to fix the lights on the starting gantry, and one for a fire on the #34 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. Iron Lynx briefly lost the lead to Schumacher CLRT at the opening round of stops but regained it once Dorian Boccolacci pitted the Porsche to remove the grounding cable.
Caldarelli, Bortolotti and Matteo Cairoli finished second, five seconds ahead of the #2 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed (Gounon/Fabian Schiller/Luca Stolz). The AMG fell back as far as eighth during the opening stint, but a consistent run saw it return to the podium.
Raffaele Maricello (#46 Team WRT BMW) made a late move to take fourth for himself, Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi, ahead of the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche (Patric Niederhauser/Julian Andlauer/Sven Müller). The BMW was particularly strong on the Mistral Straight, something both Martin and WRT teammate Charles Weerts took advantage of with a sensational three-wide move in the opening hour.
Maxime Martin with the double pass! Rovera and Gounon are dispatched in quick succession.
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The #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi (Alex Aka/Riccardo Feller/Christopher Haase) started 35th after a difficult outing in qualifying, but a strong comeback drive saw the trio recover to sixth.
The #7 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo from Comtoyou Racing finished seventh on its Endurance Cup debut, thanks to the efforts of Mattia Drudi, Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim. The other PRO Cup Vantage – the #34 from Walkenhorst Motorsport – retired in the opening hour after power steering issues and then a fire with David Pittard at the wheel. Pittard, thankfully, was okay.
Pure Rxcing (Joel Sturm/Aliaksandr Malykhin/Klaus Bachler) gained four places in the final stint to finish eighth, ahead of AF Corse’s #51 Ferrari 296 GT3 (Alessio Rovera/Davide Rigon/Alessandro Pier Gudi). Rovera climbed from 11th to sixth in the opening half hour, before losing multiple positions after contact with the #32 Team WRT BMW of Dries Vanthoor at Turn 5 triggered bodywork damage that forced the M4 GT3 into retirement.
The sole Ford Mustang GT3 from Proton Competition (Frédéric Vervisch/Dennis Olsen/Christopher Mies) made it eight different manufacturers in the top 10, after running as high as seventh. In an emerging pattern from the Mustang in prior IMSA and WEC outings, the Mustang again finished without its boot lid attached.
Fourth-place starter Christian Engelhart (#163 GRT Grasser Racing Team) spun at Turn 2 on the opening lap, falling back to 47th. Englehart, Franck Perera and Marco Mapelli recovered to 11th, one place ahead of Ayhancan Güven, Boccolacci and Laurin Heinrich in the #22 Schumacher CLRT entry.
ROWE Racing’s #98 entry had climbed from 10th on the grid to run third at the second round of stops when a fuel rig issue cost them around 18 seconds and dropped them back to eighth. Philipp Eng recovered to fourth only to require an extra stop for additional fuel, ending up 13th.
The #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo retired from 12th in the closing minutes with front-right bodywork damage, whilst the #159 Garage 59 McLaren was running in the top 10 early on before suspension failure caused Benjamin Goethe to pull off the circuit after only half an hour.
Paul Evrard, Gilles Magnus and Jim Pla drove the #25 Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to 14th overall and the Gold Cup victory, 11 seconds ahead of the pole-sitting AlManar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG (Al Faisal Al Zubair/Dominik Baumann/Mikael Grenier). The #111 CSA Racing Audi (Romain Carton/Adam Eteki/Arthur Rougier) completed the Gold Cup podium.
Winward Racing’s #57 (Dean Arrow/Colin Caresani/Tanart Sathienthirakul) led home a Mercedes 1-2-3 in the Silver Cup, completed by Boutsen VDS (Cesar Gazeau/Roee Meyuhas/Aurelien Panis) and polesitters Madpanda Motorsport (Ezequiel Perez Companc/Patrick Assenheimer).
Bronze Cup honours went to Kessel Racing’s #8 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Nicolo Rosi, Niccolo Schiro and David Fumanelli after an impressive middle stint from Schiro saw him climb from 10th to the class lead.
The top three on the grid in the Bronze Cup (#188 Garage 59, #97 Rutronik Racing and #93 SKY Tempesta Racing) all elected to start their Silver-ranked driver, and fell back in the middle stint once their Bronze drivers climbed aboard as the Safety Cars neutralised their initial advantage over their Bronze-starting opposition.
AF Corse (Louis Machiels/Jef Machiels/Andrea Bertolini) finished second, whilst John De Wilde, Kobe Pauwels and Job Van Uitert (#11 Comtoyou Racing) put the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo on the Bronze Cup podium on its GT World Challenge debut.
The next round of the Endurance Cup is the centenary edition of the 24 hours of Spa-Francorchamps, on the 29th-30th June.
Image courtesy of SRO
