By Johan Laubscher
The Spanish IBER GT Championship season finale concluded with the second and final race at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona today. Two Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were entered for the IBER GT finale.
The IBER GT finale was held alongside the finale of the International GT Open, with both series running together on track. Both championships are split into two categories: the SGT class for GTE specification vehicles and GTS for GT3 specification vehicles.
Three Audi R8 LMS ultra cars were on the grid, of which two were IBER GT entrants. Team Novadriver had entered both of their Audi R8 LMS ultra cars this weekend. The first car from Team Novadriver was the #81 Audi R8 LMS ultra with drivers Cesar Campanico and GT Open GTS class (GT3) title hopeful, Rafael Hideo Suzuki. This #81 car was entered for both the Spanish IBER GT and GT Open. Team Novadriver was aiming for the Spanish IBER GT title and Suzuki was aiming to become the GT Open GTS champion.
Team Novadriver’s second car was the #81 Audi R8 LMS ultra driven by Manuel Gião and Lourenço Da Veiga, who were only entered in the IBER GT. A third Audi was also on the grid, but it was only entered in the GT Open class, the car entered by Belgian Audi Club Team WRT, the #88 Audi R8 LMS ultra of Filipe Albuquerque and Yves Weerts.
The first race was held late on Saturday and concluded with the #81 Audi R8 LMS ultra placing fourth within the overall combined results. This was enough to take third overall within IBER GT and second place within the IBER GT GTS class. Their teammates in the #80 Audi finished fifteenth overall in the combined results.
Qualifying for race two saw the #81 Audi in ninth place overall in the combined results. This was a third place starting position within the IBER GT GTS class. Their teammates qualified twenty-third overall.
The second and final race got underway on Sunday. This final race of 2013 saw the #81 Audi R8 LMS ultra of Campanico and Suzuki finishing seventeenth overall, after a huge time handicap penalty during the pitstop. They took fourth within the IBER GT GTS class. Their teammates in the #80 Audi were involved in the start-line crash and they suffered damage while trying to avoid the incident. They ultimately finished further back in twenty-seventh position overall.
The final results unfortunately revealed that Cesar Campanico was not crowned as the 2013 Spanish IBER GT champion. He finished third overall in the standings and second in the GTS points. He missed both the overall and GTS titles by a mere three points. This weekend concluded the 2013 Spanish IBER GT season.
Photo credit: Team Novadriver
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