Carl Bennett and Tommaso Mosca took their maiden win in the International GT Open, giving the first overall race success of the year to AF Corse. In their Ferrari 296, they executed a perfect race from pole and beat the two McLarens of Michael Porter-Zac Meakin (Olimp Motorsport) and James Kell-Dean Macdonald.
Yesterday’s winner and championship leader Levente Révész, paired with Maxi Götz in the Motopark Mercedes, could not do better than tenth, but retains the lead in the standings, by 7 points on Simon Reicher-Christopher Haase (Eastalent Racing Audi), who were fifth in Race 2.
The Motopark Mercedes #65, driven by Lukas Dunner and Timo Rumpfkeil, also took a maiden win in the Pro-Am class ahead of Steve Jans-Aaron Walker (GetSpeed Mercedes), who retake the lead in the class, and the other AMG of Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler (SPS).
AF Corse rounded the day with a sixth win (and fifth in a row) in Am for Gino Forgione-Michele Rugolo (AF), ahead of the Garage 59 of Mark Sansom and Alexander West, and the BDR Grupo Prom Mercedes of Alfredo Hernández.
Tommaso Mosca (AF Corse Ferrari), in pole for the first time, kept the advantage at the start, but was briefly passed by Aron, who cut the first corner and gave back the position. Jefferies was third ahead of Porter, Haase, Mettler, MacDonald and Korzeniowski, first in Am. Naran did not take the start because of a broken engine.
Mosca’s advantage grew up to 2.5 seconds by lap 4, right before Aron suffered a blown tyre, while Haase had passed Porter for what became P3. Rogalski stopped in the pits on lap 9, retiring.
By lap 10, Mosca had a 10-second advantage on the trio Jefferies-Haase-Porter, by the time the driver change window opened, on lap 12.
During that phase, there was a big battle in the middle order, with contact between the ISR Audi and the BDR Grupo Prom Mercedes #28, which also had contact with the GetSpeed #6.
After all stops (lap 17), Bennett led by 9 seconds on Meakin, 12 on Letlaka and Kell, 13 on Müller, then Reicher, Lebbon, Hash, Schiller and Doquin. Stanislaw Jedlinski was first in Am but would soon be passed by Forgione.
Hash, Blanchemain and Milota were involved in an epic fight for 13th. They were soon joined by Basz, who passed everybody, Dörrbecker and Zelger but drama struck, first when Zelger hit Milota, and then in the final lap when the group caught Baumann and Hash hit the Mercedes hard at the Mistral chicane, sending it against the barriers, luckily with no consequences for the drivers.
That had no impact on the top ten, with Bennett even extending his gap and winning ahead of Porter, Kell, Lebbon, Schiller, Reicher and Doquin. Götz is tenth. Rumpfkeil won in Pro-Am and Forgione in Am.
Pics GT Open/ Photospeedy
