Before today’s race at Circuit Paul Ricard, we take a look back at the third round in Imola.
The third race of the 2017 World GT Series season was held in Imola on April 27th, 2017. In qualifying, there was a lot of rain, which made it difficult to string together a competitve lap. Scuderia Basilea’s Erhan Jajovski set a mega lap, gaining pole position by over 3 seconds. Because they joined qualifying very late and the bad weather, our drivers were not able to set a lap and thus started from the back of the grid (Nico Barclay) and from pitlane (Thomas Hinss).
Nico was able to gain a lot of places and found himself in P6 after the first lap. He gained two more places when Osvaldo Angelone spun on Lap 4 and after overtaking David Jundt on Lap 5. Slowly, there was a dry racing line developing. Frontrunner Risto Kappet decided to pit for dry tyres, which meant that Nico was now in 3rd position. Risto’s teammate Argo Teder pitted one lap later, which meant that Nico was in second position when he decided to switch tyres the following lap. He rejoined the race in 7th position and started to close the gap to Bret Metcalf infront of him. However, when he tried to overtake the TTF driver on lap 9, Nico lost control of the car and suffered a bent suspension after crashing into the wall. He had to pit for repairs, and rejoined the race in tenth place. However, the car still felt strange to him, so he decided to pit again the following lap. A place on the podium was highly unlikely now, but that didn’t stop Nico from chasing down the cars infront of him. On Lap 15 he was able to pass his teammate Thomas Hinss, and he gained another two spots from other drivers’ mistakes or pit stops. In the end, Nico Barclay finished in sixth place and set the third fastest lap behind the two Eval drivers.
Wet conditions made the first part of the race very difficult for the drivers.
As previously mentioned, Thomas Hinss started in 15th position from the pitlane and immediately began chasing down the field. By Lap 5, he was in 9th position already, but then he got passed by Chris Shepherd who also started from the pitlane and followed the Aussie driver closely from the start. After both Scuderia Basilea cars spun on Lap 11, Thomas was in 7th place already. Shortly afterwards, he decided to pit and rejoined the race in P8. On Lap 15, Thomas let Nico pass, but was then able to follow the his Peruvian teammate closely for most of the race. Ultimately, Thomas finished the race in seventh place.
Both drivers did a good job, scoring valuable points in difficult conditions and with very little practice. A lot of drivers had multiple off track moments, while both STAX Racing drivers were able to keep their cars on the tarmac for most of the time. Nico Barclay currently is fourth in the Drivers Standings while Thomas Hinss is tenth. In the Constructors’ Championship Table, STAX Racing is in third position. However, it should be noted that Epic Racing (2nd), STAX Racing (3rd) and Cosmo Autosport (4th) all have 53 points. The next round of the series will be held in Paul Ricard on May 11th, 2017.
Below, you can find the results of both the qualifying and the race of the Italian round.
Porsche is looking awesome. Best of luck in the next race 🙂
Cheers Felix. Latest race was yesterday and both drivers did very well. Will post a race report ASAP.