Marcel Fässler and Joël Camathias took their third win of the year, imposing the Ferrari F430 of the Trottet Racing in the Saturday race of the Magny-Cours GT Open. The Swiss duo catched up in the second stint the Autorlando Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Richard Lietz-Gianluca Roda, which had led the first part of the race and had a similar handicap of 20 seconds. Third was the IMSA Performance Porsche of Narac-Pilet, after a solid race and despite its 30 seconds handicap, with the French team bringing all its three cars in the points, as did Advanced Engineering, whose best car finished fourth (Rugolo-Ricci) ahead of the second autorlando Porsche of Couceiro-Gião.
With this success, Fässler-Camathias reduce their disadvantage with series leaders Lietz-Roda to 6 points (142 to 136) ahead of tomorrow’s race. Narac-Pilet, thrid, have 110 points, preceding Couceiro-Gião (100) and Rugolo-Ricci (96).
Marco Petrini and Lucas Guerrero won the GTS race, after the sister Villois Aston Martin of Lancieri-Wiser fell victim of a broken shaft, ahead of the two Kessel Ferraris of Kuzmynikh-Bontempelli and category leaders Peter-Broniszewski.
Lietz flew away easily from the pole, building quickly a good gap, ahead of Fässler, who had to battle for a couple of laps with Couceiro. The Portuguese would later give life to an exciting duel with Narac for fourth, with the French making his way through in lap 12. Rugolo, Balandras, Peter, Perazzini, Lancieri and Gutiérrez were following.
First retirements affected the Ruffier Lambo of Lepreux and the two SunReds of Fernández and Gutiérrez, while shortly after mid-race the Aston leading in GTS, the one of Wiser, broke a shat.
The situation did not change much until driver change, which logically saw the fastest drivers going until the very end of the allowed time window. The second part of the race started with Roda leading with a couple of seconds on Camathias, while Pilet takes third from Gião after a decided attack, the Portuguese having to bind also to Ricci soon after. On lap 30, Camathias catched Roda and passed him a few corners later. Roda would though save second position from the assault of Pilet.
In GTS, despite the retirement of Wiser, victory did not escape from the hands of the Villois Racing, with Guerrero crossing the line first ahead of Bontempelli, Broniszewski, Mallegol and Lagniez.
Source : Open GT