Porsche customer team Rutronik Racing has taken a dominant victory in the first GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup race at Circuit Zandvoort.
Having started the #96 911 GT3.R (992) from third on the grid, Patric Niederhauser moved up to second on the opening lap, which became the lead following the pit stop cycle.
Sven Müller then brought the car home for Rutronik’s second Sprint Cup victory, 5.858 seconds ahead of the #63 GRT – Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 of Luca Engstler and Jordan Pepper.
“It was very important to have a good start,” commented Niederhauser.
“The first few corners was really tight with Gilles [Magnus, who started second], but I think we had a very hard but nice and fair battle.”
“We did everything perfectly, and I just had to finish it”, added Müller.
Behind, Pepper exited the pits in fourth, but was able to fight his way past both Maro Engel in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and then Paul Evrard in the #25 Saintéloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to secure Grasser’s first podium finish of the season.
Engel and Lucas Auer extended their lead in the drivers’ championship with a third-place finish. The crew were given a five-second penalty for an unsafe release into the path of Pepper, but after passing Evrard with 11 minutes to go, Engel comfortably pulled out the margin needed to hold onto a podium place.
Evrard and Gilles Magnus won the Gold Cup in dominant fashion. The pair finished fourth overall, seven places and 18 seconds ahead of their nearest class rivals, the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.
Fifth went to the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde, which charged through from 19th on the grid.
Weerts made up six places on a chaotic opening lap, which saw at least 10 cars involved across multiple incidents and the Safety Car deployed. van der Linde then exited the pits in eighth, but was the big mover of the second stint as he fought his way past multiple Pro class rivals.
Sixth went to the #59 Garage 59 McLaren GT3 Evo of Marvin Kirchhöfer and Benjamin Goethe, ahead of the #78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini, #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG and #50 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 296 GT3.
The top 10 was completed by the Silver Cup-winning #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi of Alex Aka and Ezequiel Perez Companc. Aka lost the lead to Rutronik Racing’s Loek Hartog at the start, but Perez Companc was able to pass Hartog’s co-driver Eshan Pieris at the start of the second stint.
The Silver Cup podium was completed by the #10 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG and #26 Saintéloc Racing Audi, as Pieris fell back to fifth.
Outright pole sitter Bastian Buus controlled the opening stint in the #89 Lionspeed GP Porsche, but ceded the lead during the pit stop window. As a Bronze Cup entry, Buus and Bashar Mardini have a minimum pit stop time, and therefore dropped from first to ninth during the pit sequence.
Mardini fell back to 18th overall by the finish, but held on for the class win ahead of the charging #991 Paradine Competition BMW. The BMW was given a 10-second penalty for jumping the start, yet Darren Leung had closed to within two seconds of Mardini by the finish.
Third in Bronze was the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Dennis Marschall and Dustin Blattner, which fought back from a puncture after Marschall was spun on the opening lap.
It was an attritional race, with only 33 of the 41 starters seeing the checkered flag. The team with the most work to do overnight is HRT – Ford Performance, after its #64 Ford Mustang GT3 sustained heavy front-end damage on the opening lap.
Following the opening lap melee, the other notable incident came shortly after the Safety Car restart, when AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors’ Alessio Rovera and Lionspeed GP’s Ricardo Feller made contact at Turn 3 whilst fighting for seventh.
Rovera’s #51 Ferrari was given a Drive-Through for the incident, but the Brands Hatch race winners had already retired from the race.
Feller, meanwhile, dropped off the lead lap as he recovered to the pits with a puncture, and his #80 Porsche would end up 11th in Bronze.
Race 2 at Circuit Zandvoort takes place at 14:45 CEST tomorrow, with Qualifying 2 starting at 8:45 CEST.
Images courtesy of SRO/JEP
