+ WRT’s Weerts, Marciello and Van der Linde convert pole position into 13s win
+ Absolute Racing and JMR complete overall podium
+ Au savours Independent Cup and Bronze class success
+ Race result: Suzuka 1000km
A flawless performance from WRT’s Raffaele Marciello, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde helped BMW score its third Intercontinental GT Challenge victory of the season at the Suzuka 1000km six years after the same team and Van der Linde triumphed at the previous edition of the Summer Endurance Race.
The 13-second victory margin did not do justice to the #32 crew’s domination across all six-and-a-half hours, which were punctuated by several Safety Car periods that brought their nearest rivals back into contention.
Absolute Racing’s #7 NewMan Porsche survived a lap one scare to finish runner-up in the hands of Kevin Estre, Patrick Pilet and Laurens Vanthoor, while Nicky Catsburg held off the charging Loek Hartog to secure third for the JMR Corvette that was also driven by Scott McLoughlin and Alexander Sims.
Hartog’s final stint heroics almost resulted in an unlikely overall podium for Absolute’s other Porsche. However, fourth still represented an excellent return for the Bronze class-winning car he shared with Richard Lietz and Antares Au who added maximum IGTC Independent Cup points to his day’s work.
WRT also took the chequered flag in fifth, but a post-race 12-second penalty dropped Max Hesse, Dan Harper and Augusto Farfus back one place behind Origine’s battle-scarred 911 that lost a large chunk of its floor. The promotion of Bastian Buus, Alessio Picariello and Laurin Heinrich had no impact on BMW’s Intercontinental manufacturers’ advantage – it now leads Porsche by 18 points with one round remaining – but does drop Farfus two further points behind Marciello and new championship leader Van der Linde who are separated by five.
Two all-Japanese crews secured class wins on home soil: Yu Kanamaru, Takayuki Aoki and Yuya Motojima claimed Silver victory in their 5ZIGEN Nissan while Runup Sport’s GT-R NISMO clinched Am honours courtesy of Masaki Nishikawa, Atsushi Tanaka and Yusaku Shibata. Remarkably, the same car also contested both of this weekend’s Japan Cup races.
The event’s final class win went the way of Craft-Bamboo. Ben Barnicoat produced arguably the day’s most impressive stint by carving his way through from 32nd to 13th in the opening hour. Kevin Tse and Jonathan Hui maintained their co-driver’s good work thereafter en route to Pro-Am glory – a suitable reward for a team that spent all night repairing a Mercedes-AMG that crashed heavily in qualifying.
WRT DOES IT AGAIN
WRT’s dominance was never seriously threatened, even when its sizeable advantage – which often stood at around 24 seconds – was reduced by Safety Car interventions over the second half of the race.
Van der Linde initially pulled clear of GMR’s Mercedes-AMG amidst a frantic start that featured Vanthoor and Picariello banging wheels through the Esses. The same two factory Porsches came to blows three more times over the following two hours, but never more memorably than when Heinrich pulled a similar move on Pilet at the same corner.
Their squabble and the five-second penalty Absolute’s car collected for early contact further played into the BMW’s hands. Indeed, Weerts was cruising out front when the first Safety Car – to recover Bingo Racing’s stricken Corvette – brought the chasing pack semi into play.
GMR provided WRT’s greatest threat, but its challenge faltered when switching to an alternative strategy with just over two hours remaining dropped it from second to eighth.
Instead, it was Absolute’s #7 car that took up the fruitless chase of a BMW that maintained a small but comfortable gap after the final Safety Car period ended with 90 minutes remaining. The cars were five seconds apart at the final pitstop, but Van der Linde was able to eke that out to 13 by the time six-and-a-half hours had elapsed.
Attention therefore switched to the scrap for third where Bastian Buus’ damaged floor was compromising his Origine Porsche’s performance. Only his defensive skills kept the 911 ahead of Catsburg, Hesse, Maximilian Götz, Hartog and almost the entire field, which was soon backed up behind but unable to find a way past. Only Catsburg’s spectacular move via side-by-side action through the full length of the Esses finally broke the Dane’s resistance after 20 minutes.
But any hope of a quiet run to third were dashed by the spectacular Hartog who hounded the Corvette over the final hour. Three tenths separated them at the finish.
GMR’s Maxime Martin, Luca Stolz and Mikael Grenier were Mercedes-AMG’s best placed finishers in seventh overall.
Ferrari’s hopes of a top result were scuppered by issues that hit its best placed class contenders. LM Corsa was leading Pro-Am and hovering just outside the overall top 10 when Kei Nakanishi crashed approaching Degner 1, while Harmony’s ‘Ramen Rocket’ – which started sixth – lost six minutes with a jammed wheel nut.
The Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS stages IGTC’s title showdown on October 16-18.