After a successful round 5 of the GT Open in Silverstone, the team went with a tailwind into round 6 in Barcelona. Accordingly, everyone was motivated to have a solid weekend again.
This good feeling was confirmed by a very good first free practice. Here the two bronze riders Valentin Pierburg (#20) and Miguel Ramos (#10) finished 1st (#10) and 3rd / 1st in the class (#20). The last two training sessions were solid, but you could see that the field was very close and there was a high power density. The same picture showed the results of these two sessions. #10 on place 8 and #20 on P10 both on place 1 with a distance of about 0,700 seconds. The same picture was shown in the last training. The #20 on P9 and the #10 on P12.
With these sobering results we went into the first race day, which brought some surprises. Because differently than in the previous training days it rained on Saturday and even quite heavily. In an extremely wet qualifying the two AMG GT3s showed their usual potential again. Fabrizio Crestani was able to put the #10 on the grid with a sensational lap.
Pole position set, while Valentin Pierburg the #20 on a very good place 15 / 6 in the class could set. So everything was ready for an exciting rain race.
The start of the race went very well for both pilots and both could go a good pace in their stints. But unfortunately the weather during the race was unpredictable. The drivers decided to stay on rain tyres shortly before the pit stop. At this point they were the right decision and both cars had the fastest times in the field in the first laps after the stop. At that time the #10 was a comfortable lead and the #20 was a podium finish in the ProAm class. But unfortunately the weather did not develop in favour of the SPS Pitstop strategy. In the course of the race the sun came out and the track dried up pretty quickly, which meant that all those who took the risk to change slicks were almost 10 seconds faster per lap. So any chance of winning for both cars was gone. They then decided to make another stop with the #20 to lose as few points as possible in the championship fight, which worked. The #20 finished 5th in the ProAM and the #10 came 10th across the finish line. All in all it was a very unfortunate race 1, because you missed 2 very good results. But that belongs to motorsport and so the motto for race day 2 was clear: “Wipe your mouth and go on”.
On Sunday Tom Onslow-Cole drove the qualifying for the #20 and Miguel Ramos took the wheel of the #10. Also in this qualifying both Mercedes AMG GT3 showed a very good pace and you could qualify with the #20 on P2 / P1 in ProAm and with the #10 on P11. With this result we were confident again to take many points in the race 2. But this time some things went wrong right at the start. Tom Onslow-Cole missed the start and slipped back to P7. Miguel Ramos got a hit and also slipped to P15. In the rest of the race, however, the two were able to keep up a solid pace. After the pit stop Valentin Pierburg in the #20 and Fabrizio Crestani in the #10 could go a very good pace. Unfortunately the luck was not on the SPS side this weekend and you got a 10 seconds time penalty for a too long pit stop. A mistake on the part of the team which prevented good points. The #20 crossed the finish line on P16 and P6 in the ProAm. The #10 finished on a solid 7th place.
Regarding the championship, the following picture emerges after these two races: With the #20 we are still on place 1 with 4 points ahead of place 2.
With the #10 we are 5th in the overall ranking.
So the final lap in Monza will be extremely decisive. We will continue in Italy in 2 weeks.