It was a great day in Barcelona for the pair leading the standings of the GT Cup Europe. Luca Franca and Ian Rodriguez, in the FAEMS Team Porsche, took pole and their fourth win of the season, thus extending their lead in the standings, where they now have an advantage of 24 points on Ludovico Longoni and Pietro Armanni (ZRS Motorsport), today only 9th.
Today’s overall podium was completed by the two class winners: Laura van den Hengel and Paul Meijer (Burgers Motorsport HWM) were second and take a sixth success in the class they dominate, while Cosimo Papi (Ebimotors) doubled his success in Am of yesterday.
THE RACE – Championship leader Ian Rodriguez (FAEMS Porsche) took the pole in a rain-soaked qualifying session, red-flagged twice, but couldn’t resist the attacks of Fabio Babini, who took the lead in lap 1, shortly before the safety car intervene to allow rescuing the car of Romagnoli, stranded after contact with Svepes.
At the restart, in lap 4, Rodriguez retakes the lead ahead of Babini, Armanni and Fernandes, with the four in full fight. But the battle for fifth is even fiercer and more spectacular. It involves deMello, Svepes and Papi who exchange positions a couple of times, and Larini.
The pt stop window opens in lap 11, and when all changes are made, by lap 16, Zaenen is in the lead, nine seconds ahead of Scannicchio, Franca who has passed Longoni, Mello, Meijer, Papi and Vandierendonck.
Drama strikes as Lars Zaenen, the leader, is forced to the pits with a technical issue at the front. Martins is also out of the race, stranded on track with a mechanical issue. The safety car is needed to remove the Porsche. It’s all good for Franca in the lead, although he remains challenged by Scannicchio, Longoni and Longin, all covered by one second. Longoni and Longin pass Scannicchio, who soon after is rammed by de Mello, with the safety car again called in. When it leaves the track there is time for only race flight, with does not change positions, except for Longoni, who drops to 9th given the 5-seconds penalty received for an earlier incident. Similar penalties, for various reasons, are inflicted to cars 11, 24, 8, 992 and 911.