Porsche Cup: Ernst Keller shows the champion

A total of 85 participants tackled the Swiss season finale for Porsche club racers at the Misano World Circuit in late summer weather. Once again, Ernst Keller put himself in the best light.

The 43-year-old from Regensdorf won the qualifying for the GT3 Cup Challenge ahead of Andreas Sczepansky and Manuel Nicolaidis. After that, Keller took two clear victories with the Sportec-prepared Porsche 991 Mk2, which meant there was nothing to shake his title win.

Everything went right for Ernst Keller in 2018
For Keller, it's the first official title. In 2014, he was the overall winner in Subrating 5b for GT3 Cup cars built between 2006 and 2009, but never before in the premier class. In 2015 and 2016, Keller was runner-up behind Jean-Paul von Burg. The champion did not compete after the starting accident in Dijon in August.

Ernst Keller: "This year I had the necessary racing luck, but Jean-Paul did not. With the new 991 Mk2 cars, we all had the same material at the front in 2018, and the tire limitation was more in my favor. I was physically and mentally well prepared this year, plus Sportec did a super job. Many thanks to everyone!"

Catching up with Schmidt and Calamia
Sczepansky took second place in the first sprint ahead of Andreas Corradina. Roland Schmidt put in an impressive race to catch up, working his way up from tenth on the grid to fourth place. The occasional racer was thus still ahead of Nicolaidis.

While Ernst Keller drove away at the front in the second race as well, Mauro Calamia attracted attention behind him. With joker tires on his Porsche, the former Maserati World Cup winner started the 15-lap race from twelfth position. Calamia plowed his way up to second place.

A dream come true
The season was rounded off with a two-hour night race. Although Keller would also have been on the GT3 pole, team partner Corradina and he decided not to start.

Instead, Roland Schmidt shone together with his son Jeffrey, who is one of the best in international GT3 racing. As overall runners-up, they won the endurance race in Class 5e with the Porsche 911 II GT3 Cup rented from Raceunion ahead of Paul Kasper and professional Klaus Bachler.

Roland Schmidt: "It was my dream and wish to be able to race with Jeffrey at some point. He is a full professional through and through, especially his data analyses after each training session made me faster and more confident after each session in Mugello and now also in Misano. We all had mega fun!"

Christian Pfefferle and Jürg Aeberhard were the undisputed overall winners. With the 911 GT3 Cup R from ANT Performance, they took two laps or more off the entire field.

Cayman Cup: Texeira wins and Rendulic takes title
In the Porsche Sports Cup and Cayman GT4 Clubsport classes, respectively, Antonio Texeira (Sportec) dominated the action with two sprint wins from the best starting position. Martin Koch from Amag First Rennsport finished twice in second place.

The title went to Léonard Rendulic of Orchid Racing. He finished the first race in fourth place and the second in third.

Texeira had to end the endurance race early without having intervened in the fight for victory. The class win went to the trio of Michele di Bona, Ivan Jacoma (who also finished third overall in a GT3 car) and Daniel Mancinelli of Amag First Rennsport.

Porsche Driver's Challenge
The last regularity test over ten laps was won by Robert Schwaller at the wheel of a 991 GT3 Mk2 with a cumulative deviation of 4.082 seconds. With second place, Peter Meister moved up from fourth to second in the annual Porsche Driver's Challenge standings.

The overall winner in 2018 is Peter Gafner on a 991 GT3, although he finished eighth out of 20 drivers in Misano and was only in the midfield.

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