• Pole-sitters in all three classes claim victory, #30 Pro-Am Porsche finishes first overall
• #10 AVR-Avvatar Porsche bags seventh win of the season and secures 2023 Am Cup crown
• First Silver Cup victory for Hartvig/Schaap in #22 Allied-Racing Porsche
The spectacular grid counting 44 cars got underway cleanly and, in a first half hour without any major incidents, the #30 W&S Motorsport Porsche defended his lead with confidence. Behind, the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche battled it out for P2 with the #77 Elite Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 (Rattican/Emson) and the #3 Team Speedcar Audi R8 (Lariche/Consani) made some highly entertaining moves to climb up to fourth place.
The top four emerged out of the Pit Window in that exact same order, and the ever stronger #17 V8 Racing Chevrolet Camaro (Rappange/Herremans) wanted a piece of the action up front as well. Close racing in true GT4 European Series fashion followed, but then an overly optimistic move by the #3 Team Speedcar Audi ended in drama, taking the #17 Chevrolet out of the race with him and causing a Safety Car procedure with 20 minutes left on the clock.
When the lights went back to green seven minutes later, the #77 Elite Motorsport McLaren was not able to withstand the pressure any longer and dropped well out of podium reach. The #110 Autosport GP LS Group Performance Alpine (Cauhaupe/Tirman) and #4 BCMC Motorsport powered by EastSide Motorsport Mercedes-AMG (De Fulgencio/Gogollok) took advantage, as did Gabriele Piana, charging frantically to move the #2 Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport BMW M4 he had taken over from Michael Schrey up into the top five.
When an incident involving multiple cars caused a red flag with just four minutes left on the clock, Race 1 came to a premature end and all positions were fixed in place. That awarded the well-deserved overall and Pro-Am victory to Hendrik Still and Max Kronberg in the #30 W&S Motorsport Porsche, and Silver Cup honours to Hartvig/Schaap in the #22 Allied-Racing 718 Cayman.
Meanwhile, Guilvert/Hamon had managed to claim second place in Pro-Am (P9 overall) in their #42 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT4, bringing this season's Pro-Am championship crown ever closer. And as the dust settled, no more doubts remained about the Am championship: with their seventh Am Cup win out of nice races this season, Piguet/Varutti secure the class title for AVR-Avvatar in the #10 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS!
That dramatic final in Race 1 concludes the action from Hockenheim for Saturday. All eyes are now on Race 2 of the GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club, scheduled for Sunday at 11.30 CEST. The entire race will be streamed live in English, French and German via the GT4 European Series website and the GTWorld YouTube channel.
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