Despite less than ideal results in the free practice and qualifying sessions, the RN Vision STS Racing Team and its drivers Gabriele Piana and Razvan Umbrarescu managed to climb to first place in the championship battle in the Pro/Am-class at the penultimate round of the Northern Cup of the GT4 European Series at Zandvoort.
After an incident during free practice the RN Vision STS Racing team had to face a long night full a work already on the Friday of the race weekend. Because the #112 Porsche Cayman of John-Louis Jasper and Pavel Lefterov could not be repaired trackside, they had to switch to a car borrowed from a competitor, which needed, however, to be brought up to current GT4-specifications by the team‘s mechanics – an effort that would take them until midnight. Another unwelcome side effect of the car change was that Jasper and Lefterov would have to start both races from the very back of the grid, their qualifying performances being entirely meaningless. Their team mates Umbrarescu and Piana, meanwhile, fared relatively better and qualified their #111 Porsche Cayman in 17th and 8th position for the weekend‘s two races in a qualifying session held in difficult conditions on a drying track.
Because of their position on the back of the grid somewhat surprisingly, it was the #112 car of Lefterov and Jasper that made headlines for the team in race 1, as Lefterov managed to race from 33rd to 15th position during his stint before handing the car over to John-Louis Jasper. The German then managed to gain another four positions and would go on to finish the race just outside the top 10 in 11th position overall and 8th position in the Silver-Cup for up-and-coming junior pilots. Their team mates Umbrarescu and Piana had a somewhat less eventful race. Umbrarescu managed to move up to 15th position before the opening of the pit stop window. Piana then made his way up to 7th position overall, before losing some time for a drive through penalty and finishing in tenth position, which equaled rank two in the Pro/Am-championship. Since one of their greatest rivals in the hunt for this title didn’t finish the race at all, the two RN Vision STS pilots gained valuable ground in the fight for this trophy.
Piana started the Sunday race from 8th position in the #111. The Italian managed to make his way up to 3rd, before the race was interrupted by the red flag after the car of a competitor had caught fire. During the long delay that resulted from the red flag, the team put Razvan Umbrarescu into the #111 Cayman. When the race was restarted with 17 minutes to go, the Romanian had to let through some of the Silver-Cup pilots, but managed to stay ahead of the Allied Racing Porsche – one of RN Vision’s two biggest rivals in the fight for the Pro/Am-crown – for the time being. On the last lap Umbrarescu lost the class lead to his rival after a hard overtaking maneuver, which was, however, deemed unfair by the stewarts after the race. Piana and Umbrarescu were thus restored to 7th position overall and 1st place in the Pro/Am-category. Lefterov and Jasper in the #112 meanwhile came home in 15th place overall and 7th place in the Silver Cup after starting again from the very back of the 33 cars strong field.
Before the last two rounds of the series, which will be held at the Nürburgring in mid-September, Lefterov and Jasper lie in fifth position in the Silver-Cup and are still within reach of a top-3 finish in that contest. Piana and Umbrarescu have climbed to first place of the Pro-Am-standings, 5 points ahead of their closest rivals and with 50 points still to play for.
Pavel Lefterov:
“We had a bad start to the weekend with the incident in FP1, which meant that we lost FP2 and had to start from the very back in both races because of the change of car. In the first race I drove up to 15th position before handing over to John-Louis, who then finished in 11th. The 2nd race was pretty much the same deal.”
John-Louis Jasper:
“It was a difficult weekend for us since we didn‘t have much time for testing. In race one we still managed to finish in 11th overall and 9th in the Silver-Cup, which gave us some points for the championship. We had worse luck in the 2nd race. With the long red flag period we didn‘t have time to get further ahead; additionally, we lost some positions in an incident with another Porsche.
Gabriele Piana:
“We had hoped to repeat the double win from Slovakia-Ring, but we realized after FP that some other makes were very quick here, so from then on the weekend was mostly about damage control. Race one went okay and we were lucky with some opponents running into problems and finished P2 in our class. On Sunday we wanted to do one better, and we did alright until the red flag came out, but then Razvan had to fight for every position, because the red flag had wiped out the gap that I had built in my stint. We were still leading P1 in the last lap, but by the time we crossed the finish line we were second, after an opponent pushed us out. He then got a penalty and we walked away with P2 and P1 in the two races.”
Razvan Umbrarescu:
“It was a very tough weekend for us. We had a lot of bad luck, like with Gabriele’s drive through penalty yesterday, but in the end it all turned out well. Gabriele did a great job in both his stints. Today, I tried to keep my position after the red flag, but somebody hit me in the back in the last lap, which wasn’t fair, so we reported it to the stewards and in the end we got back the first place in class.
