V8 Racing Renault RS01 FGT3 wins the 12 Hours of Italy

Mugello – The #333 V8 Racing Renault RS01 FGT3 has won the Hankook 12H Italy-Mugello. Luc Braams, Max Braams, Nicky Pastorelli and Miguel Ramos drove a near flawless race and took home their first overall win in the 24H Series powered by Hankook. The Renault drivers completed 345 laps on the 5.245 kilometres long circuit in Tuscany, covering a total distance of 1,809.525 kilometres. Hofor-Racing finished second with its Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 (#10, Michael Kroll/Chantal Kroll/Roland Eggimann/Kenneth Heyer/Christiaan Frankenhout). The Hofor-Racing Mercedes finished four laps down on the V8 Racing Renault.

It was the Optimum Motorsport Audi R8 LMS that led the most laps in the race and it looked destined for victory, before disaster struck the team that won the SP3 class in 2015. With just under 90 minutes remaining the Audi suffered a gearbox problem and lost the lead to the V8 Racing Renault RS01 FGT3. Half an hour later the problems resurfaced and as Ratcliffe came to a halt on the track he was hit by an unsighted DINAMIC SRL Porsche 991 Cup (#56, Alex de Giacomi/Giovanni Berton/Niccolo’ Mercatali/Mattia Drudi).

The A6-Am class

Third place overall went to the GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (#963, Rolf Ineichen/Mark Ineichen/Adrian Amstutz/Christian Engelhart), finishing five laps behind the race winners. The IDEC SPORT RACING Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 (#17, Patrice Lafargue/Paul Lafargue/Gabriel Abergel/Sacha Bottemanne) claimed fourth place overall and the victory in the A6-Am class, the second consecutive class win for father and son Lafargue and Abergel in the Hankook 12H Italy-Mugello. Equipe Verschuur took second place in A6-Am with its Renault RS01 FGT3 (#23, Erik van Loon/Harrie Kolen/Mike Verschuur).

The SPX class

GDL team Asia (#77, Gianluca De Lorenzi/Giacomo Barri) won the SPX class with its Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo, finishing four laps ahead of the second placed Vincenzo Sospiri Racing car (#666, Jia Tong Liang/Jaap Bartels/Daniel Mancinelli/Jacopo Faccioni). The #666 Lamborghini was unable to make up the two-lap penalty it was given for driving into the pit lane in the last 10 minutes of part 1 and a three-minute penalty for its driving behaviour in part 2.

The 991 class

In the 991 class for Porsche 991 Cup cars MRS GT-Racing (#78, Charles Putman/Charles Espenlaub/Joe Foster) took the top spot. The MRS GT-Racing team had been trading the lead with the #56 DINAMIC SRL Porsche for most of the race. It had already taken the lead when the #56 DINAMIC SRL car collided with the #14 Optimum Motorsport Audi. The Tsunami RT Porsche (#86, Oleksander Gaidai/Come Ledogar/Kriton Lentoudis) finished in second place.

The SP2 class

LMS Engineering (#206, Peter Terting/Stefan Wieninger/Constantin Kletzer) dominated the SP2 class, finishing 12 laps ahead of the Speedlover Porsche 991 Cup (#84, Pierre-Yves Paque/Philippe Richard), while the Italian Nova Race team scored a convincing 1-2 victory in the SP3 class. The #284 Ginetta G55 GT4 (Luca Rangoni/Luca Magnoni/Roberto Gentili) beat the sister car, the #282 Ginetta G55 GT4 (Gianluca Carboni/Manuel Lasagni/Maurizio Copetti).

The A3 class

The #140 PCR Sport Seat Leon Cup Racer (Harriet Arruabarrena/Antonio Aristi/Jordi Masdeu/Iñigo Vigiola) won the TCR class, with the Hofor-Kuepper Racing BMW E46 M3 Coupe (#101, Martin Kroll/Bernd Küpper/Lars Zander/Meisam Taheri) winning the A3 class for touring cars.

The CUP1 class for BMW M235i Racing Cup cars was won by the #146 Bonk Motorsport car (Max Partl/Hermann Bock/Rainer Partl). The sister car (#145, Axel Burghardt/Jürgen Meyer/Liesette Braams) finished in second place.

The A2 class

Despite losing a large amount of time at the end of part 1 yesterday and having to repair the car overnight, the Besaplast Racing Mini Cooper S JCW (#165, Franjo Kovac/Fredrik Lestrup/Henry Littig) won the A2 class. In the end the gap to the second placed #169 Barin Ford Fiesta ST was 12 laps.

Next Race

There were five Code 60 interruptions in the second part of the Hankook 12H Italy-Mugello, with a total time of 33 minutes and 8 seconds run under Code 60. The 24H Series powered by Hankook now moves on to Silverstone in the United Kingdom on 1-3 April.

24H Series