Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard in their Pro Speed Competition Porsche 911 GT3 RSR won the fifth FIA GT2-race of the season. Notwithstanding being penalised after the qualifying sessions, resulting in gstarting from the back row on the grid, the British- French duo with the full support of the team drove a masterly race through to victory. Darryl O’Young annd Marco Holzer in their ProSpeed Competition Porsche 911 GT3 RSR put up an excellent performance, finishing fourth and scoring valuable points in the team championship. “The entire team all performed brilliantly, as outcome a victory and with as cherry on top of the cake the fact that we are once again joint leaders in the team championship”, is how team manager Rudi Penders summarised the Hungarian weekend.
On Saturday in Hungary Richard Westbrook took pole position in GT2, whilst Darryl O’Young set tenth best time.
Richard Westbrook: “The car is super; it could well be the best Porsche the team has given me up until now. Both in qualifying, where you need to register one fast lap, as during the long runs in the free practice sessions the car is just fantastic, notwithstanding the additional weight carried. All very promising for tomorrow. We need to grab some points away from the leading Ferrari.”
A problem with the car’s airbox threatened to throw a spanner in the works. “Indeed”, technical director Luc Goris confirmed. “Following the qualifying session we were scrapped from the results, a suppression hose had loosened, resulting in a small opening in the airbox appearing. This resulted in us being disqualified, but let us be quite clear about this in no way is the team to blame. This was pure bad luck. However this meant
that Richard’s pole was converted into a last place on the grid.”
The Brit took enormous motivation from this penalty and during his first stint drove a masterly race from last place up through to second spot, whereby he even left the championship leader behind him. Behind him Darryl O’Young and Marco Holzer climbed up from tenth into fourth place. “And even a podium place might have been on the books for them”, Rudi Penders commented. “A minor problem with a wheel nut during the tyre
change cost us time, and what with these very fine differences in GT2 you never know. But Darryl and Marco drove an excellent race and strongly contributed to the success of the team.”
Up front Westbrook once again took over the wheel from Collard in second position, closed the eight second gap with leader Bruni in the Ferrari 430, and in the final lap overtook the Italian to score a well deserved victory, with the ten points linked to it. “Thanks to this we are within two points of the leaders in the intermediate standings of the drivers’ championship, and ProSpeed Competition is now on an equal par with AF Corse in the team championship, before continuing the battle on 19th and 20th September in the Algarve (Portugal)”, an overjoyed Brit added.
Source : ProSpeed