The latest round of the 2018 Blancplain GT Series Endurance Cup: Paul Ricard 1000 Kms proved hugely successful for Barwell Motorsport.
The prestigious Endurance race around the famous French track finished with both of the team’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3s finishing on the podium in their respective classes.
The Black Bull Whisky-backed machine of Michele Beretta, Sandy Mitchell and Martin Kodric took a superb first win in the Silver Cup ‘junior pro’ class. Backing them up with their second podium of the season were Leo Machitski, Adrian Amstutz and Francisco Guedes, who took runner-up spot in the Am Cup class for Bronze drivers.
This has meant that both of the Barwell team crews have moved into third place in their respective championship points standings at the half-way stage of the season.
Victory in the Silver Cup was the result of a great team effort; including great on-track performances from all three drivers, great strategy calls, and race management from the Barwell engineering team and slick work from the pit crew.
Following contact with another car early on, the drivers battled on with increasingly stiffening steering, but were still able to maintain excellent race pace throughout.
During the first half of the race, the battle was incredibly intense with the top six in the class running nose-to-tail. But after the third hour pit stop, Barwell were able to leapfrog themselves into the lead in class, which they would never relinquish.
Meanwhile, in the Am Cup, a strong opening stint from Machitski established the Barwell Motorsport squad in second place, which was consolidated by strong performances in the remainder of the race by Amstutz and Guedes.
Despite Barwell taking the lead after making a short ‘joker’ pit-stop, they were powerless to resist the pace-setting McLaren Garage 59 squad from re-taking top spot in the closing stages of the race.
The Blancplain GT Series Endurance Cup continues with the Spa Francorchamps 24 Hours on 28-29 July, where Barwell Motorsport will hope to continue this momentum into the blue riband event of the year.