The classification of Race One of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup finale at Barcelona has been cancelled, following a successful appeal by Team WRT.
No points will be awarded from the race, giving WRT the 2024 Sprint Cup Teams’ title.
The majority of the race, won by Boutsen VDS’ Jules Gounon and Maximilian Götz (pictured below), was held behind the Safety Car due to the weather conditions. This included the pit window, where Team WRT argued that a breach of Article 20.5.2 of the Sporting Regulations occurred.
The regulation states: “If the Safety Car is on track or a Full Course Yellow period is in operation at the time when the pit window is scheduled to open (25:00 after the start of the race) the pit window will be delayed. The pit window will be opened immediately after the green flag is shown at the end of the SC or FCY period. At the end of a Safety Car period, all cars must take the green flag at the Line before pitting. The pits will remain open for 10 minutes after the green flag was shown for the mandatory stops. Any pit stops taken before the start of the new pit window, or before the car has taken the green flag on track, will not count as the mandatory pit stop”.
The Safety Car was deployed on the opening lap after a multi-car incident and kept out until the final six minutes of the hour-long race due to heavy rainfall. An attempt to resume green flag running after 21 minutes was unsuccessful, with the instruction given for the Safety Car to remain on circuit before the race could resume.
At the 25-minute mark, a ‘Pit Window Open’ message appeared on the public broadcast, although no similar message was displayed on official communication channels between Race Control and the Teams. Despite this, multiple cars – including the eventual winners, who had been running fifth – pitted to serve their mandatory stop, before the Race Director issued a “We Confirm Pit Window is Open” message.
As the Safety Car circulated at reduced speed, Gounon was able to lap much quicker than those who hadn’t pitted before the “We Confirm Pit Window is Open” message and were still in the Safety Car queue. This meant he ended the pitstop sequence as the race leader. Meanwhile, the slow pace of cars still on slick tyres had created large gaps within the Safety Car train, with both of Team WRT’s BMW M4 GT3s ending up behind one of these gaps.
After an initial protest was dismissed by the Stewards, the issue was escalated to the RACB Sport National Court, who found in Team WRT’s favour.
Team WRT, represented by Team Principal Vincent Vosse, Sporting Director Pierre Dieudonne and Performance & Data Engineer Antoine Herblot, highlighted that the Sporting Regulations offered no exceptions to the procedure laid out in Article 20.5.2, meaning that the pit window shouldn’t have been opened under Safety Car conditions.
They also argued that completing the pit window under a Red Flag procedure would’ve been the safer and fairer option, a point the National Court of Appeal (NCA) agreed with. Also present at the appeal, which was held on 12th November, were Emil Frey Racing as an interested party.
Since only six and a half minutes of Green Flag running took place, on top of the breach of the Sporting Regulations, the NCA decided that awarding points would be unfair, and the results should be annulled.
“The Sport Prosecutor argued that the race conditions were extremely difficult (early collision, incidents, bad weather…), which meant that the competitors were unable to compete fairly under equal conditions. These circumstances meant that the race lasted only a few minutes. The Sport Prosecutor is of the opinion that art. 20.5.1 and 20.5.2. of the FANATEC GT World Challenge Sporting Regulations (FGTWC SR) have not been correctly applied.
“In this context, awarding points to some competitors would be unfair since the results of the race are not based on merit and equity. Consequently, he asked that the appeal be considered well-founded and that the results of the race be annulled and that no points be awarded. He also requested that SRO, the organizer, be reprimanded for its failure to react appropriately in accordance with the above regulations.”
This means that Team WRT have taken the Sprint Cup Teams’ title for a record-extending ninth time, by a single point over Winward Racing. Winward Racing’s #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lucas Auer and Maro Engel had finished third in the race, scoring 9.5 points, whilst Team WRT’s Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts had only scored a single point for finishing ninth.
The removal of these points was enough to reverse Winward Racing’s previous 6.5-point title-winning margin. Auer and Engel retain the Drivers’ title by a reduced margin of 2.5 points, and no other Sprint Cup titles have changed hands because of the decision.
The annulment also means Vanthoor and Weerts’ lead over Auer and Engel in the overall GT World Challenge Europe Drivers’ standings has extended from seven to 15.5 points ahead of this weekend’s Jeddah season finale.
This means a podium finish for their #32 BMW would guarantee them the title.
The decision in full can be read here >>
Pics JEP/ SRO
