Jubilee Day: Successes on all fronts
IMPRESSIVE In Monza, Emil Frey Racing celebrated its first podium of the season in the GT World Challenge, in Imola Grégoire Saucy won in Formula Alpine and in Barcelona Louis Delétraz made a flawless debut in the ELMS. What a Sunday! In the run-up to the Formula 1 race at Imola, Grégoire Saucy won the Formula Regional European [...]
What a Sunday! Grégoire Saucy scored an impressive start-finish victory in the Formula Regional European by Alpine in the run-up to the Formula 1 race in Imola. With the best time in qualifying, the man from the Jura created the best starting position for the second race on Sunday afternoon.
Winner and leader of the table
Despite two safety car phases that brought the 30-strong field of around 270-hp Tatuus race cars closer together, Saucy did not let his biggest win to date slip away. Thanks to the good points for fifth place the day before, the Swiss takes over the lead in the standings.
Axel Gnos finished 15th and 17th, Jasin Ferati did not get beyond 22nd place on Saturday and ended up in the gravel trap on the second lap on Sunday.
Difficult conditions in Monza
Not only speed, but also the necessary luck played a major role at the GT World Challenge Europe in Monza. After just a few minutes, a rain shower exacerbated the conditions. Despite this, some of the drivers in the field of 42 GT3 sports cars remained on slicks with no tread.
It was not until the third hour that dry conditions prevailed again. Despite punctures on all three Lamborghinis, Emil Frey Racing still had a hot iron in the fire with the Swiss car in the final third of the race. After difficult and perfect preparation by start driver Rolf Ineichen, Alex Fontana also mastered the middle stint well in tricky conditions.
The Ticino native was in P17 with just under an hour to go. With 50 minutes to go, another puncture on a BMW triggered a caution period, which the team with start number #14 used for the final mandatory pit stop.
Overall third and class winner
Back on the track, final runner Ricardo Feller found himself in third place behind the later winning Porsche from Dinamic Motorsport with the trio Engelhart/Cairoli/Bachler. The 20-year-old from Aargau chased the second-placed Mercedes for almost half an hour and was in turn under pressure from a Ferrari.
This was the order in which they finished. The three Swiss not only finished a brilliant third on the overall winners' podium, but were also celebrated as separate winners in the Silver Cup.
In this classification of drivers without Platinum or Gold status, Philip Ellis came third in a Mercedes. Yannick Mettler and Miklas Born took eighth place in silver in another Mercedes. Adrian Amstutz celebrated third place in the Pro-Am category with his team in a Lamborghini.
Good GT2 debut from Sportec
In the one-hour race before, Christoph Ulrich and Adrian Spescha in the KTM X-Bow GTX from Sportec Motorsport took the Am class win in the new GT2 European Series.
In the process, the duo, managed by Sports Director Marcel Fässler, left Austrian brand colleagues Hans-Joachim Stuck and Kris Rosenberger behind by 1.5 seconds and two other Am teams despite a spectacular spin with no consequences by Spescha. The Swiss duo finished second Am the day before, taking the lead in the standings.
Two Swiss victories in the ELMS
There were also two winning teams with Swiss crews at the European Le Mans Series opener in Barcelona. Louis Delétraz, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, who started from second place, won the four-hour race. Starting driver Delétraz only relinquished the lead briefly in the early stages and handed over the Oreca-Nissan from WRT in Belgium to the Pole after 100 minutes but already in the lead.
The LMP3 class was won by the Geneva-based Cool Racing team with Nicolas Maulini, German Niklas Kruetten and Briton Matt Bell. With a strong last third of the race, Rahel Frey moved the Ferrari 488 GTE of the Iron Lynx women's team up to fourth place in her class.
