Zandvoort FIA GT: Mercedes gets first win of 2013 with Buhk and Day

Buhk led from pole, and again after a red flag period, and built a lead of more than six seconds over Stephane Ortelli in the best of the WRT Audis before the mandatory pitstops began.

Day resumed with a lead of just under three seconds, but was able to exploit the clear advantage of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG around Zandvoort to pull away from Laurens Vanthoor in the Audi R8 LMS ultra.

Buhk said: "I had to try to stay focused during the red flag. I pushed hard because I knew we would lose time to the WRT cars in the pitstops."

Vanthoor had to fend off the advances of Frank Stippler in the second WRT Audi over the final couple of laps.

The German, who shared the car with Edward Sandstrom, had dropped nearly four seconds behind the sister car after the pitstops.

Fourth place went to the Seyffarth Mercedes driven by Karun Chandhok and Jan Seyffarth.

Chandhok went from eighth to sixth at the start before losing out to Hari Proczyk in the Grasser Lamborghini Gallardo.

A quick pitstop got the car out in fourth place and Seyffarth was able to hold off the advances of Alvaro Parente in the Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren before the Portuguese stopped with two laps to go.

Results - 35 laps (inc red flag):

Pos  Drivers              Team                          Time/Gap 
 1.  Buhk/Day             Gravity Charouz Mercedes  1h27m51.001s
 2.  Ortelli/Vanthoor     WRT Audi                       +6.667s
 3.  Sandstrom/Stippler   WRT Audi                       +6.995s
 4.  Chandhok/Seyffarth   Seyffarth Mercedes            +33.895s
 5.  Proczyk/Baumann      Grasser Lamborghini           +40.127s
 6.  Zonta/Jimenez        Brasil BMW                    +41.218s
 7.  Bueno/Khodair        Brasil BMW                    +55.861s
 8.  Ordonez/Buncombe     RJN Nissan                    +58.858s
 9.  Ebrahim/Heemskerk    India BMW                   +1m00.473s
10.  Cunha/Stumpf         Rodrive Lamborghini         +1m12.200s
11.  Shulzhitskiy/Reip    RJN Nissan                  +1m17.169s
12.  Afanasiev/Simonsen   Gravity Charouz Mercedes    +1m31.788s
13.  Charouz/Stovicek     Gravity Charouz Mercedes        +1 lap
14.  Loeb/Parente         Loeb McLaren                   +3 laps
15.  Parisy/Zuber         Loeb McLaren                   +3 laps

   Retirements:

     Mayr-Melnhof/Rast    WRT Audi                       14 laps
     Salaquarda/Onidi     AF Ferrari                     13 laps
     Braams/Huisman       V8 Corvette                    12 laps
     Kumpen/Ide           Phoenix Audi                    3 laps
     Campanico/Vieira     Novadriver Audi                  1 lap