The 4^th round of the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo took place in Belgium last weekend, in opening of the world famous GT endurance race: the Spa 24 hours. With 50 Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo on the grid – a world record for a one-make series – no need to say that Sarah was looking for this round with big expectations…

“Home-race is always something special“, Sarah says. “As I grew up on that legendary track, I really wanted to make the difference here. I knew also my Australian team mate, Ben Gersekowski was here for the first time and it’s definitely not an easy track to learn, especially with a 620 horsepower Lamborghini! For sure, the weather conditions didn’t help, we had rain during FP1, drying track for FP2 … with all the red flags and conditions changes, none of us really had any idea of the set-up or the track feeling before our qualifications“.

During the first qualification, under wet but drying conditions, Sarah never found the right pace:

“First on track during the first few laps, my laptimes were very good, consistently in top 10 overall. However, five minutes before the end of the session, with the track drying very quickly, I suddenly lost all grip and realised that my tires were completely over-heated and way too high in pressures. We eventually finished with a disappointing P33 on the grid. Fortunately, the day after, under dry condition, Ben did much better and qualified the car in 18^th position for the second race!”

Then, the two determined team mates had to face the two 50 minutes races of the weekend, and with 50 cars on track under changing conditions, there were a lot of easy traps to fall in!

“We knew that it would be difficult to achieve a big result in the first race, and the safety car going on track for 15 minutes did definitely not help us… With only 15 minutes of proper race during my stint, I was proud to bring the car back to my teammate in 17^th position! Coming from P33, I really had a lot of fun on track. Ben then confirmed his fast learning of the track and managed to reach the finish line with a final gain of 8 positions from our starting place”.

For the second race, after a tremendous start of the Aussie driver, the safety car got on the track for more than … 25 minutes! It didn’t let a lot of time to gain much more race positions.

“When I got in the car”, Sarah says, “I was ready to fight for any positions. Ben did an excellent start but couldn’t do much more as the race was interrupted. I knew I needed to fight hard to ensure a good result. We realised that in our class (PRO-AM), all the ‘AM’ drivers were starting the race and because of the safety car we couldn’t built any gap between them and us. When I jumped in the car, I then fought against all the ‘PRO’ drivers“.

After some very good fights on track, several hot overtaking moves and big team work, the #2 green beast eventually crossed the finish line in P13^th overall, 7^th in class. The best result Ben and Sarah did so far in the European competition.

“I’m really happy of the final result. It shows that we are able to fight for much better than a few races ago. Here, facing 49 other competitors, we showed we are consistently improving and learning. I can’t wait to be on the Nurburgring in September!”.

See you on the 17^th and 18^th of September for the next race weekend of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe.