Porsche Cup: The first does not always win
OVERVIEW GT4 CLASS IMOLA While the winners in the sprint race of the GT4 classes at the Porsche Cup Suisse in Imola were clear after crossing the finish line, the first in the enduro race received subsequent time penalties. None of the established winning drivers had secured pole position in Class 10 for the GT4 Clubsport group sprint race at Imola, but Markus Lietzau. In the race, [...]
None of the established winning drivers had secured pole position in Class 10 for the GT4 Clubsport Group sprint race at Imola, but Markus Lietzau. In the race, however, the German had to retire his approximately 425-hp 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport with Manthey Racing package early after just ten of 14 laps.
Sprint wins to Herbst and Kressig
Thomas Herbst thus celebrated his second win of the season ahead of Alexandre Mottet and Jean-Edouard Roussel. Championship leader Laurent Misbach had to make a pit stop to have a tire changed. As a result, the Geneva native lost his second place but was still classified fourth in class.
In the 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport without MR package, Renzo Kressig crossed the finish line after a good 27 minutes of driving time as the best in Class 11 with a commanding lead over Remo Stebler and Thomas Bucher. While the previous leader of the standings Philipp Hagnauer skipped the Imola races, Patrick Schetty had to settle for 5th place behind Lorenz Nef.
Mandatory pit stops too short
In the Endurance competition, the duo of Markus Lietzau and Florian Strauss was in front after a good 68 minutes. However, the Germans completed their mandatory pit stop too quickly and collected six penalty seconds as a result. Enough to lose the top spot they had taken over on lap 29 back to their direct rival Laurent Misbach.
Sprint winner Thomas Herbst was hit even harder: He missed the time window for the mandatory pit stop, which closed after the 45th minute of the race, and was disqualified for this. However, his subsequent protest against this decision was upheld by the race organizers in the evening. As a result, Herbst ultimately finished third in the standings.
In Class 11, Patrick Schetty was only a few hundredths of a second short of the minimum dwell time of 2:28 minutes at the mandatory stop, but this also cost three penalty seconds. Renzo Kressig, who crossed the finish line in Schetty's slipstream and thus moved up to first place, was the winner. Third place went to Thomas Bucher.
The Open GT classification saw Leonardo Caglioni as the commanding winner of the Sprint. The overall classification of the Endurance race was secured by Jan Klingelnberg/Dino Zamparelli with a narrow lead over runner-up Gabriele Rindone.
Master of regularity
In the Porsche Drivers Competition Suisse, Nicolas Garski continued his winning streak. He drove his Porsche 911 GT3 so consistently in the regularity competition that he only allowed himself a deviation of 0.86 seconds from his own average time of 2:06.15 minutes on the nine scored laps out of a total of ten.
So much precision was also necessary, because second-placed Franco Castellazzi managed with a difference of 0.95 seconds in the 911 GT3 RS and had to concede defeat by a correspondingly narrow margin. Defending champion Peter Gafner finished third ahead of Peter Meister and Jens Puhlfürst.
