Blancpain Sprint: Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk take win
The Grasser Lamborghini driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk dominated the main event of the Brands Hatch round of the Blancpain Sprint Series
Bleekemolen and Proczyk followed up on their by leading all but four laps on the way to a four-second victory in the full-points race in the afternoon.
Proczyk converted pole position into the lead of the race and was able to keep his Lamborghini Gallardo FLII ahead of Maximilian Buhk's HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG to the mandatory stops.
A quick turnaround in the pits by the Austrian Grasser team got Bleekemolen out with an advantage of just over three seconds over the BMW Team Brazil entry that Valdeno Brito had just taken over from Matheus Stumpf
The chasing Brito, who had leapfrogged the HTP Mercedes in the pits, had slipped to more than five seconds behind the leader when he had to bring his BMW Z4 into the pits for a drive-through after a pitstop infringement was called.
Maximilian Gotz took over second position in the HTP entry but was unable to make any inroads into Bleekemolen's lead until the Dutchman backed off in the closing stages.
Bleekemolen paid tribute to the Grasser team after the race for its quick pitstop and for fixing a problem with a rear hub that almost prevented the car from making it onto the grid.
"The team won the race for us today," he said. "They had 14 minutes to fix the car before the pitlane closed.
"I couldn't believe that they did it and then those same guys were amazing at the pitstop."
The second Brazilian BMW moved up to third in the hands Sergio Jimenez and Caca Bueno after its sister car was penalised.
The pole-winning WRT Audi R8 LMS recovered to fourth in Laurens Vanthoor's hands after he took over from Cesar Ramos.
Alex Zanardi came from the back to fifth in his ROAL Motorsport BMW Z4, the Italian who drives alone finishing just head of Silver Cup winners Vincent Abril and Mateusz Lisowski in their WRT Audi.
Pro-Am honours again went to the Phoenix Audi shared by Marc Basseng and Alessandro Latif.
Results - 42 laps: Pos Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Proczyk/Bleekemolen Grasser Lamborghini 1h01m19.981s 2. Buhk/Gotz HTP Mercedes +4.043s 3. Jimenez/Bueno Brazil BMW +11.760s 4. Ramos/Vanthoor WRT Audi +19.365s 5. Zanardi ROAL BMW +24.579s 6. Abril/Lisowski WRT Audi +25.187s 7. Salaquarda/Montermini Villorba Ferrari +25.747s 8. Stumpf/Brito Brazil BMW +27.088s 9. Ide/Rast WRT Audi +27.829s 10. Colombo/Fumanelli ROAL BMW +41.001s 11. Latif/Basseng Phoenix Audi +58.394s 12. Lloyd/Pentus Bhaitech McLaren +1m04.185s 13. Rusinov/Ortelli WRT Audi +1m09.230s 14. Ebrahim/Toril Fortec Mercedes -1 lap 15. Landmann/Halek Grasser Lamborghini -1 lap 16. Pantano/Onidi Bhaitech McLaren -1 lap Retirements: Mayr-Melnhof/Winkelhock Phoenix Audi 14 laps Rosina/Enge Reiter Lamborghini 12 laps Dusseldorp/Afanasiev HTP Mercedes 2 laps
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