Lourenço Beirão and António Félix Da Costa took their maiden win of the season in a lively Race 2 at Silverstone, after a race-long duel with team mates Fran Rueda-Victor Bouveng, giving a 1-2 to the BMW Team Teo Martín. Yesterday’s winners Albert Costa-Philipp Frommenwiler (Emil Frey Lexus) took third in the closing minutes, ahead of the Lambo Huracan of Giovanni Venturini-Marco Mapelli. Venturini keeps the lead in the standings with 4 points over Costa-Frommenwiler, 6 on Biagi and 8 on Rueda-Bouveng.
The Jordan Bentley of Jordan Witt-Michael Meadows took at home its maiden win in Pro- Am ahead of Hamaguchi-Liuzzi (FFF Lambo) and class leaders Balfe-Bell (Balfe McLaren), while Alex Moiseev-Davide Rizzo (Kaspersky Ferrari) won in Am.
THE RACE – Rueda and Costa start well from row 1, with Ledogar taking third after going wide at turn 1. Follow Venturini, Giammaria, Postiglione and Khodair, passed by Mac and Liuzzi. In lap 2, Mowlem spins after a contact while Costa attacks fiercely Rueda and takes first. The track is slightly wet in some places, and Ledogar drops from 3rd to 8th after an off-track. The Frenchman will repeat himself in lap 4 but three laps later he takes 6th from Mac (he will later receive a 5-second penalty).
In lap 10, Da Costa leads by 2.5 seconds on Rueda, followed by the three Imperiale cars of Venturini, Giammaria and Postiglione, then Ledogar, Mac, Liuzzi, Khodair, D.Farnbacher, Frommenwiler and Ratcliffe. Konrad pits with a problem. In lap 12, Venturini passes Rueda, who opens the pit stop phase, followed by Frommenwiler, Calamia, Ratcliffe and Balfe.
In lap 17, after all changes, Beirão leads, with Bouveng 6 seconds behind, Fontana 9 and West 12; then, Hahn, Hamaguchi, M.Farnbacher, Biagi, Ramos and Mapelli. Hahn’s car loses oil, which provokes a couple of spins before the Brazilian stops in the pits.
By lap 21, Bouveng has reduced the disadvantage on Beirão to 3 seconds, while Fontana is third, followed by M.Farnbacher and Mapelli, who have passed West (whose car stops soon after, with a clutch problem), with Biagi, Costa and Keen also in the top-8. In Am, the Kaspersky Ferrari is a solid leader.
In the final phases, Mapelli takes fourth from Farnbacher, who spins shortly after dropping to 6th. Bouveng presses Beirão until the end but without getting through.
The word of the winners:
Lourenço Beirão: “First at last! We were really waiting for this first win and I hope this is only the first of many… It has been a tough race, the handling of the car wasn’t perfect at the end, because of a broken splitter, but I could hold off Victor until the end. It was an intense but fair fight.”
António Félix Da Costa: “It was a very good weekend for the entire team, who worked really hard to achieve this result. We had no team orders and I was a little bit faster than Fran at the very beginning, but obviously he was defending his advantage. It was a hot few laps but in all fairness.”
