Spectacular and closely contested races, BMW dominant, a win plus a further podium for Valentino Rossi in the two GT3 races on Saturday: those were the highlights of the GTWC weekend at Misano, the second sprint event of the season. It provided great entertainment for the crowd and confirmed that this series is attracting increasing numbers of high level competitors, as well as more fans. On the Pirelli front, it also demonstrated that, once again, the P Zero DHF tyres provided drivers with the requisite peace of mind so that they could tackle the tricky demands of the Marco Simoncelli circuit without any worries.
Looking at the races in detail, in Race 1 on Saturday afternoon, the win went to the BMW M4 GT3 of Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi in a race that went down to the wire. Rossi, on his second consecutive win at his home track, was hounded all the way to the flag by team-mate Charles Weerts, who had taken over from Dries Vanthoor at the pit stop, just managing to fend him off, crossing the line only under three tenths of a second ahead. The close fight between the BMWs confirmed that Team WRT were on great form, as had already been seen in Friday’s qualifying. Third was the Emil Frey Ferrari of Thierry Vermeulen and Giacomo Altoe, trailing almost 17 seconds behind the leading pair. Race 2 was also spectacular, with Weerts and Vanthoor taking a comfortable win, fending off the attentions of Lucas Auer e Maro Engel (Mercedes-AMG n. 48). Third was the 46 car of Rossi and Martin to round off BMW’s overwhelming dominance of the weekend.
Matteo Braga, Circuit Activity Manager: “As was the case at Brands Hatch, the Sprint Cup demonstrated just how challenging it can be, as well as how exciting it is for the spectators. The unexpected lovely weather helped the show, but it has delayed the track debut of our new wet weather tyre, the Cinturato WHB, which was ready and waiting for the rain expected for Sunday morning’s GT2 race. There will be other opportunities no doubt. In any case, we gathered important data relating to the P Zero DHF at this track whose characteristics always throw up some tricky challenges.”
Over the weekend, apart from the GT3 and GT2 races, Pirelli was also involved in GT4 and the McLaren Trophy, with the cars running the same tyre as in the other series.
With Misano completed, the GT cars will next head to Spa where, as from Tuesday 21 May, they will start testing for the 24 Hours which takes place from 26 to 30 June. It’s a very important event for the teams, who are also preparing for the other 24 Hour GT race at the Nurburgring, another round of the Interncontinental GT Challenge, which gets underway on 1 June.