While Laurens Vanthoor is presently leading in the international highly esteemed FIA GT Series, the Belgian driver does not appear to be experiencing a lucky year when it comes to 24-hour races. After his retirements at the Nürburgring 24 Hours and the Spa 24 Hours, Laurens Vanthoor finished 4th in Zolder, in a race that should have been his and that of his teammates of WRT Audi Club Belgium. With one third of the race under their belt, Anthony Kumpen, Enzo Ide, Bert Longin and Laurens Vanthoor were leading the race by several laps, but bad luck made them lose precious time. Despite a tremendous fight, the team had to accept defeat and finally finished 4th overall and 3rd in the GT class.
Laurens Vanthoor started the 24 Hours of Zolder in a perfect way. On home turf, the leader in the FIA GT Series took pole with the Belgian team’s Audi R8 Ultra. On Saturday, in front of 15.000 spectators in the grandstands, the Audi started off very well and after several laps had built up a substantial lead.
Laurens Vanthoor: “At the 8 hour mark, we had to change the gearbox which of course caused a loss of time. The Audi team showed why they are so successful throughout the world because it took less than an hour to restart. From then on, we had to put the pressure on our competitors in order to still win the race.”
After 16 hours, the Audi was back in the mirrors of the leading Porsche. But bad luck never comes alone, and while victory was still possible, two further technical interventions decided the outcome of the race. Anthony Kumpen, Enzo Ide, Bert Longin and Laurens Vanthoor lost all chances of fighting for victory, but still managed to save 4th overall and 3rd in class.
Laurens Vanthoor: “I can’t be happy with this result, as both the team and drivers wanted to win this race. WRT won Zolder in 2011 and 2012 and I took my first victory here last year. There was no reason why another victory would have been impossible. The Audi R8 is a fantastic car, but once again Zolder proved to be a very hard track for a 24-hour race. Whereas the R8 did not experience any problems in the past two years, this time around we struck some bad luck…”
Source : Laurens Vanthoor