Dinamic Motorsport’s drivers; Christian Engelhart, Sven Mueller and Matteo Cairoli produced a dominant performance to deliver victory in the six hour second round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup at the Nurburgring.
After the electric opening round of the Endurance Cup, this raced promised to carry on the excitement and drama. We didn’t have to wait long as into the first turn there was chaos as the pole sitting #40 GPX Racing Porsche was tagged by the #163 Emil Frey Lamborghini that was going down the inside.
The ensuing drama allowed Dinamic’s Porsche to take the lead with Engelhart keeping his nose clean and he proceeded to control the opening stages. Stints from Mueller and Cairoli barely saw the Dinamic squad lose control of the race despite several safety cars for various incidents wiping out its lead.
While it was a relatively straightforward run to victory, the same couldn’t be said for the battles for the remaining top overall positions.
Raffaele Marciello, Timur Boguslavskiy and Felipe Fraga finished the race in second place in the #88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes-AMG after benefiting from a penalty for the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Squad of Dries Vanthoor, Christopher Mies and Charles Weerts. The team received a drive-through penalty after an unsafe pit release which also allowed the HRT Mercedes Squad to take third place.
Despite a charge in the final two stints from Vanthoor, he was ultimately unsuccessful in challenging Maro Engel, who was sharing the car with Vincent Abril and Luca Stolz. The bad luck didn’t end there though as the car slowed exiting the final corner and allowed the sister car of Mirko Bortolotti, Kelvin van der Linde and Rolf Ineichen to take fourth.
The #31 WRT Audi also had a troubled afternoon after receiving a penalty for Ineichen exceeding his 65-minute drive time allocation but still managed to pick up fourth place at the end.
Silver Cup honours was run down to the final corner as the #159 Garage 59 Aston Martin of Andrew Watson, Valentin Hasse-Clot and James Pull narrowly beat the #78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini. Both had run at the front of the class order from the start and were locked in battle until the very last lap. With Pull at the wheel for the last stint, he managed to beat Patrick Kujala across the line by just 0.242s after six hours of racing.
The Pro-Am result was a little less hectic in the closing stages although there was just 25 minutes on the clock as the #19 Orange1 FFF Racing Lamborghini overtook the #991 Herberth Motorsport Porsche. Phil Keen was at the wheel to make the winning pass. Sainteloc Racing Audi was the lone Am Cup car and took the finish 36th overall with Michael Blanchemain, Clement Seyler and Pierre-Yves Paque at the wheel.
There were several notable retirements, including the #51 AF Corse Pro-class Ferrari and #163 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini were withdrawn after getting involved in the multi-car incident on lap one. Both of Emil Frey’s cars retired, with the sister car retiring after Ricardo Feller became unwell behind the wheel.
