It was a clean sweep for Porsche Junior Julien Andlauer at the opening round of the 2019 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain as he went fastest in free practice, qualifying and claimed victory in the race.
While the results indicate that it was an easy race for the young Frenchman, rookie Ayhancan Güven wasn’t going to let Andlauer take the win easily.
At the start of the race in the run down in to the first corner the Turkish driver showed that he came to race for the win as he went door-to-door with Andlauer through the first few corners.
Over the course of the next few laps Güven swarmed over the back of the BWT Lechner Racing Porsche until lap five when Pro-Am driver Clement Mateu was left stranded after an incident, bringing out the safety car.
Andlauer made the most of the restart to break the tow, pulling away through the remaining laps to win by 3.2 seconds.
Credit: Porsche
With Andlauer out front the battle for second place intensified as reigning champion Michael Ammermüller piled on the pressure to Güven, as Mikkel Pedersen and Tio Ellinas watched on from fourth and fifth places.
As the laps counted down Ammermüller was forced to settle for third place after Güven’s strong defence; The reigning champion using his experience of maximising on points rather than losing out in an accident.
“In the last laps I was sitting on Ayhancan Güven’s bumper. This racetrack has very few passages that are suitable for overtaking, and he was slightly faster than me in those places,” explained Ammermüller.
After initially challenging for the podium, Pedersen lost out to both Ellinas and Jaap van Lagen in the closing stages, ending the race in sixth place.
Al Faisal Al Zubair recorded his best finish in Supercup with seventh place ahead of Jaxon Evans, who managed to make up two places from his tenth placed qualifying spot on his debut.
“Eighth place at my debut is a decent result. But I know that more would have been possible. For this reason, my team and I will work hard. Racing in front of the Formula 1 grandstands was great fun,” said the 22-year-old.
Credit: Porsche
Talking after the race, Andlauer summed up, “That was a perfect weekend for me. I managed to assert myself in the critical phases of the race – which were in the first laps and at the restart after the safety car phase,”
Güven added, “I had a great duel with Julien Andlauer over the first laps. Unfortunately, I was no longer able to match his pace. Still, it felt terrific to climb the podium in front of so many people,”
Roar Lindland got his Pro-Am title defence off to a great start too as he beat Nicolas Misslin and Philipp sager to the top of the podium.
2019 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup – Round 1 – Spain – Race Results
[table id=3849 /]
