Mies, Riberas take Misano Blancpain win for Audi
WRT Audi drivers Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas took victory for the first time in the 2018 Blancpain GT Sprint Cup season in the first race at Misano.
Photo by: Daniel James Smith
Mies in the #1 Audi held off the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello and Michael Meadows during the final third of the race.
Marciello behind the wheel slowly ate into Mies’ lead, but in the final few laps lost ground to the WRT team.
The podium was completed by #63 Grasser Lamborghini duo Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart, who ended the race 16.118s behind the leading two cars after starting ninth.
They finished ahead of Grasser’s #19 team of Andrea Caldarelli and Ezequiel Perez Companc in fourth, who during the middle part of the race got past the #114 Emil Frey Lexus of Stephane Ortelli and Norbert Siedler and the AKKA-ASP #90 car of Jack Manchester and Nico Bastian.
Ortelli was also able to get around Manchester not long after to finish in fifth, with the #90 team taking sixth overall as the top entry in the Silver class.
Mikael Grenier, in the #54 Emil Frey Jaguar that he shares with Alex Fontana, was catching Manchester during the final laps in the race, but finished in seventh, 0.309s shy.
Sheldon Van der Linde took home the #17 WRT Audi in eighth, with the #14 Emil Frey Lexus of Christian Klien and Albert Costa claiming ninth place. The top 10 was rounded off by WRT’s #3 team of Ricardo Feller and Adrien De Leener.
Markus Winkelhock and Nyls Stievenart topped the Pro-Am class in their #26 Sainteloc Racing Audi, finishing the race in 11th overall.
Report by Tim Lumb
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