By Tarek Ramchani
Zandvoort hosted the FIA GT Series Championship Race today. As was the case in the Qualifying Race yesterday, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT did very well.
The #11 Audi R8 LMS ultra of Laurens Vanthoor and Stéphane Ortelli finished in a very strong second. The sister #13 Audi R8 LMS ultra of Frank Stippler and Edward Sandstrom finished in third. Both cars battled very hard for that second place during the closing stages of the race. No team orders at the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT, Vanthoor and Stippler fought neck and neck for that second place, and for big points in the series standings. Ahead the winning #1 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 from HTP Gravity Charouz was flying. The car shared Alon Day and Maximilian Buhk was simply unstoppable today, with a 6 second lead after the 1-hour race.
Only two Audi cars made it to the finish line. The race was red flagged after only two laps, and stopped for several minutes. The #14 Audi R8 LMS ultra from Team Novadriver had a very scary crash, with team owner Cesar Campanico behind the wheel. After the restart it was the turn of the #5 Audi R8 LMS ultra from Phoenix Racing to retire. Minutes later the #12 Audi R8 LMS ultra from Belgian Audi Club Team WRT retired as well following their pit-stop.
Although three cars have retired today, it was a very successful weekend for the Audi squad at Zandvoort. In the driver's standings Laurens Vanthoor and Stéphane Ortelli lead with 70 points. Their teammates Edward Sandstöm and Frank Stippler are second with 60 points. Alon Day and Maximilian Buhk (Mercedes-Benz) are third with 53 points. In the team's standings, the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT is first with 86 points. In second Sebastien Loeb Racing (McLaren) with 61 points and HTP Gravity Charouz (Mercedes-Benz) in third with 59 points.
The FIA GT Series will resume at the Slovakia Ring on August 17th and 18th.
Photo credit: FIA GT Series
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