It all looked so promising for Benjamin Lariche during the opening stages. He flew off into the distance in the #3 Team Speedcar Audi R8 LMS GT4, oblivious to the close battles behind. A few incidents caused short safety car procedures, but at every single restart the Audi rebuilt a comfortable gap in no time.
It all looked so promising for Benjamin Lariche during the opening stages. He flew off into the distance in the #3 Team Speedcar Audi R8 LMS GT4, oblivious to the close battles behind. A few incidents caused short safety car procedures, but at every single restart the Audi rebuilt a comfortable gap in no time.
Close to mid-race, the #45 Fullmotorsport Audi (Abramczyk/Vozniak) ran into trouble and that retirement not only cost them the lead in Pro-Am, but also caused a slight delay in the pit window opening. Schrey steered the #2 BMW, invisible up to that point after a start from 14th on the grid, into the pit lane as soon as possible. The early handover to Piana saw the Italian emerge in P4 after all cars had made their midway stop.
From that point on, there was simply no stopping the championship leader. First he gobbled up the #11 Borusan Otomotiv Motorsport BMW (Joulie/Gedik) and then a handy safety car procedure allowed him to close in on the #15 NM Racing Team Mercedes-AMG (Papadopulos/Ibanez). That was dealt with just as swiftly and left only a final frantic push to the leading Audi, which finally succumbed to the intense pressure of the BMW just 30 seconds before the chequered flag.
Against all odds, the Silver Cup championship leader did come out on top, and the same goes for the Pro-Am and Am leaders. After seeing the #45 Audi drop out of the race, Guilvert/Hamon managed to sneak their #42 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT4 just in front of the #20 EastSide Motorsport Mercedes-AMG (Bulatov/Mayer) to score maximum points in Pro-Am. And speaking of maximum points, Alban Varutti and Julien Piguet made it six out of seven wins this season in the #10 AVR-Avvatar Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS, before the #72 GPA Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 (Grizaud/Jimenez).
As the beating Italian sun now sets over the GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club paddock, drivers cool down and find a good rest ahead of Sunday morning's Race 2. That starts at 10.25 CEST, and again it will be streamed live in English, French and German via the GT4 European Series website and the GTWorld YouTube channel.
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Race 1 - Results
