Lamborghini claimed their first win of the season in the Blancpain Sprint Series during round 2 which took place at Brands Hatch. Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk driving the No.28 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini won the qualifying session before winning the main race, they led from start to finish. HTP Motorsports were close to clinching the victory in their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG driven by Maximilian Buhk and Maximilian Götz; they finished in second.
Third place went to BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil in the No.0 BMW Z4 driven by Sergio Jimenez and Caca Bueno. The No.28 Lamborghini took the lead from start and was followed by HTP’s Mercedes; at that time the #30 BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil BMW was running third. Positions remained the same during the first half, when the Lamborghini pitted, HTP’s Mercedes decided to go on a little longer in order to take the lead.
The strategy did not work for Mercedes and by the time they drove off from the pitlanes, they were in third place behind the Lamborghini and the No.30 BMW Z4. It was evident that the top three positions had already been defined but a drive through penalty put the No.30 BMW Z4 away giving way for HTP Mercedes and the No.0 BMW Z4.
The No.1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT finished in fourth place but it was the fifth placed Alex Zanardi who drove the crowd crazy as he crossed the finish line. Zanardi had started in 17th place but fought hard all the way to finish in fifth. The Silver Cup win went to the No.4 Audi of Vincent Abril and Mateusz Lisowski. The Pro-Am trophy went to the No.5 Phoenix Racing Audi of Alessandro Latif and Marc Basseng.
The next round of the Blancpain Sprint Series will be held at the Zandvoort circuit in The Netherlands on July 4th. HTP Motorsports leads the constructors’ standings with 63 points, their driver leads the drivers’ standings with 61 points. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT and Grasser Racing Team are in second and third respectively.
Quotes:
Hari Proczyk (#28 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini):
I have to thank the entire team for their efforts. If they had not managed to repair the broken wheel nut in the fifteen minutes before pitlane closed, we would have had to start the race from pitlane. We had only one or two seconds to spare, so that was not best way to try and focus for the start of the race! At the start, I was a bit surprised to see the SLS a bit in front of me, but it was fine in the end. Once I had the tyres up to temperature, I could apply the same tactics to keep Maxi Buhk behind me.
Maximilian Götz (#84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes):
Of course it would have been nice to win here in Brands Hatch as well, but I think we can be happy with this result. We really enjoyed this weekend, had a good qualifying session and with our two second places today we are still leading the championship.
Sergio Jimenez (#0 BMW Sports Trophy Team Brasil):
Four races, three podiums, those are magnificent numbers for our team. Every member of our team is Brazilian and some stay in Europe for 60 days, so this is their reward. We have won the pitstop challenge as well, even though our pit stop was not perfect. For now, it’s still difficult to fight for a win, but we are getting closer.
