Ulysse de Pauw and Pierre-Alexandre Jean have achieved victory in the first race of the Sprint Cup in Valencia. A scenario in which the title has been quickly resolved in favor of the Audi #32 and the Pro-Am category for the Mercedes #188.
Ulysse de Pauw and Pierre-Alexandre Jean have achieved victory in the first race of the Sprint Cup in Valencia. The #53 Ferrari duo dominated the race from start to finish, even if there were two Safety Car neutralizations. With the third final position, Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor have won the Sprint Cup title for the third consecutive year. The Pro-Am class also has champions.
De Pauw did not fail at the start and managed to retain the first position after his pole. Behind the Ferrari #53 there was an important change, since Simon Gachet won the game over Charles Weerts and placed second with the Audi #11. From behind and after suffering a three-position penalty, the Mercedes #89 in the hands of Timur Boguslavskiy gained two places in the first few turns.
Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor have claimed their third consecutive GTWC Europe Sprint Cup title
However, the race did not finish taking off. First due to the Safety Car caused by the problems of the #54 Porsche, since the De Leener car suffered several touches in the first laps. Then came the pit stops and in the second half of the race there were a long period of ‘Full Course Yellow’ plus Safety Car for the accident of the Mercedes #90 Madpanda Motorsport.
All these incidents broke the pace of the race and of its leaders, although the pair of Ferrari #53 perfectly managed each start. In the end, Pierre-Alexandre Jean crossed the finish line half a second ahead of Christopher Haase’s #11 Audi. For its part, the Audi #32 crossed the finish line in third positionwhile the #89 Mercedes with Raffaele Marciello at the wheel could not get past seventh place.
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The champions repeat
A result that allows the drivers of the #32 Audi to add the necessary points to be champions again, again in Valencia like last year. Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor have thus achieved their third consecutive title of the Sprint Cup, second in this same stage. A new hit for the strongest Belgian couple in the GT World Challenge Europe seen his performance with the Team WRT GT3.
Witnesses to the success of Weerts and Vanthoor have been the drivers of the Audi #30, fourth at the end of the race and second in the Silver Cup. The ‘top5’ was completed by another Audi, in this case the #66 from Attempto Racing after beating the #12 from Car Collection. For its part, Raffaele Marciello has managed to climb to seventh place with the #89 Mercedesin an insufficient comeback.
The Pro-Am title also has an owner
The resolution of the Pro-Am category has been quite a bit grayerespecially since the two GT3 that were fighting for the title have been involved in an avoidable touch of the British Dean MacDonald with the McLaren #188 to the Ferrari #52 of Andrea Bertolini. A ‘kiss’ that’s done with a simultaneous spin of both cars, but which served to define the title due to the advantage that the duo of #188 drivers had.
Despite finishing fourth in the category, Miguel Ramos and Dean MacDonald have taken the Pro-Am title, making the podium of the Ferrari #52 of Louis Machiels and Andrea Bertolini useless. Given this mishap for the two strongest cars in the Pro-Am category, the class victory went to the McLaren #111 of Patryk Krupinski and Christian Klien.
Photos: Motor.es