The track
4665 meters, 16 curves, situated to Montmeló, in the North of Barcelona, in Catalonia, where we are greeted by the great Juan Manuel Fangio.
Context
After the successful inaugural edition of the 24H Circuit Paul Ricard in July and the summer break, the racing continues with the fifth and penultimate round of the 24H SERIES powered by Hankook, the 24h Barcelona on 4-5-6 September 2015.
Ranking situation
After 4 rounds (24h Dubai, 12h Italy-Mugello, 12h Zandvoort and 24h Paul Ricard) the overall ranking (all merged classes) is squeezed. The top 8 teams were separated by 15 points (from Bonk Motorsport 97 points to Speedworks Motorsport 2, presenza.eu Racing Team Clio 1 and MARC Cars Australia 1 equally ranked with 82 points). At the driver’s side, Peter Leemhuis first (SP2 Class) precedes Siarhei Paulavets fifteenth (A5 class) by 20 points.
The event
In 1998, France sang and 1 and 2 and 3 zeros after finale of the Soccer World Cup won against Brazil. Mercedes and this SLS AMG GT3 could make the same at the end of 24 hours of Barcelona. Three SLS on the podium. The HP Racing #2 (Bernd Schneider, Reinhold Renger, Hari Proczyk, Reinhard Kofler and Sean Johnston) preceded the Hofor Racing #10 (Michael Kroll, Chantal Kroll, Roland Eggimann, Kenneth Heyer and Christiaan Frankenhout) itself followed by the RAM Racing #30 (Tom Onslow-Cole, Thomas Jäger, Paul White and Jeroen Bleekemolen).
From the beginning of hostilities the SLS showed itself irresistible, private test, free practice, qualifying1 and night practice were dominated by one of them. The qualifying1 was reserved for cars of the fastest classes (A6, SP2 and 997) but was run in a steady rain. The qualification 2 which included only the smaller categories was run, from the middle of the qualification, on a dry track. Resulting the small classes were faster than the Top. For safety reasons, comprehensible, officials decided that the final grid will retain the A6, SP2, and 997 cars at the front. The first line of the starting grid was, thereby, in the colors of the girls of Stuttgart, the #5 Car Collection Motorsport next to the #10 Hofor Racing.
These events does not detract from the performance of the Porsche 997 Cup GT4 #43 of APO Sport and Alex Osborne (setting a 1:59.292)
The race
I will not detail, here, all that happened during this race and the 662 laps which has duration. It is, as you can imagine, hard to follow properly, and thus to relate, a 24 hours race when we spend most of its time behind the camera around the track.
With over 70 cars at the start, divided into 9 classes, the battle for the podiums was constant.
In the first third of the race, the HB Racing Team Herberth #7 Porsche 997 GT3 R (Daniel Allemann, Herbert Handlos, Ralf Bohn and Alfred Renauer) was one of rare competitors to maintain pressure on the three Mercedes. It does not mean that the victory was easy, the battle raged, and the leaders had changed frequently.
Some adventures are to relate, as the braking of the Walkenhorst-Motorsport #3 BMW Z4 GT3 (Henry Walkenhorst, Matias Henkola, Chris Tiger and Jens Klingmann) after the panel "too late" at the end of the pits straight, which almost ended in a rescue vehicle or the big fright of the team HP Racing in the end, when the hood of the Mercedes took down, requiring repairs.
But no major incident came to perturb the event which was played by pleasant temperatures and on a dry track.
Only a few Code 60, were needed to recover immobilized cars, and also some debris.
Has noted the very good performance of the Porsche 991 Cup #17 of Ruffier Racing (Paul Lafargue, Dimitri Enjalbert, Gabier Abergel and Patrice Lafargue) that, finishing 4th overall, are sure to win the championship before the last race of the season.
In conclusion, great race on a beautiful circuit in a very good atmosphere
I am going to leave the hand to Martin for the ultimate round of the Season in Brno on 9-10 October.