Audi completes dominant opening weekend in FIA GT1 with 1-2 finish in main race
The WRT Audi team continued its domination of the opening event of the FIA GT1 World Championship with a second one-two of the weekend in the main race at Nogaro
Stephane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor followed up on their qualifying race victory in wet conditions at the French track on Sunday with a dry win in the championship race on Monday. They ended up 3.7s ahead of team-mates Frank Stippler and Oliver Jarvis in the second of the two WRT Audi R8 ultras.
Ortelli led from pole position and pitted with a 2.1s lead over Stippler, who stopped two laps later. Jarvis emerged from the pits with half a car's length over Vanthoor, who was unable to make his warm tyres count.
Vanthoor made an unsuccessful bid for the lead three laps into his stint at Turn 7 before making the same manouevre stick four laps later. The Belgian was able to pull away to secure a double victory on his sportscar debut.
Jarvis hung on to second despite a charge from Markus Winkelhock in the best of the All-Inkl team's pair of Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs. The German, who shared the car with team manager Marc Basseng, finished less than a second down at the finish of the one-hour race.
The second All-Inkl Merc, driven by Nicky Pastorelli and Thomas Jaeger, finished fourth ahead of the two AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italias.
Peter Kox was the fastest driver on the track for much of the second half of the race, but was unable find a way up into the top six in the Reiter Lamborghini he shared with Darryl O'Young.
Results - 40 laps: Pos Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Ortelli/Vanthoor WRT Audi 1h00m26.801s 2. Stippler/Jarvis WRT Audi + 3.731s 3. Basseng/Winkelhock Munnich Mercedes + 4.421s 4. Pastorelli/Jager Munnich Mercedes + 6.366s 5. Ide/Castellacci AF Corse Ferrari + 18.925s 6. Vilander/Salaquarda AF Corse Ferrari + 21.231s 7. O'Young/Kox Reiter Lamborghini + 21.682s 8. von Thurn und Taxis/Enge Reiter Lamborghini + 35.234s 9. Parisy/Halliday Exim Porsche + 49.619s 10. Buurman/Bartels Vita4One BMW + 1m00.307s 11. Mayr-Melnhof/Lauda Vita4One BMW + 1m05.808s 12. Martin/Vasiliev Valmon Aston + 1m27.167s 13. Zuber/Afanasyev Valmon Aston + 1 lap 14. Pavlovic/Cressoni Sunred Ford + 2 laps 15. Lariche/Wei Exim Porsche + 3 laps Retirements: Demoustier/Parente Hexis McLaren 18 laps Makowiecki/Dusseldorp Hexis McLaren 3 laps
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