- Lionspeed GP finishes seventh in Bronze Cup in six-hour race at Circuit Paul Ricard
- Team battles through challenging weekend to score first points of the season
- GTWC Europe campaign to continue at Zandvoort on May 16-18
Lionspeed GP secured its first point finish of the season in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup opener at Paul Ricard. Gabriel Rindone, Patrick Kolb and Ricardo Feller finished seventh in the Bronze Cup category at the end of a tough weekend in France.
The six-hour race at the Le Castellet marked the opening fixture for the GTWC Europe schedule, with Lionspeed returning to the circuit where it had enjoyed a productive Prologue test a number of weeks earlier. Rindone, Kolb and Feller were entered into the Bronze Cup category, which featured 16 cars. In total, 59 cars had been entered for the race, which started in the evening hours on Saturday and ran until midnight.
The team would encounter a challenging start to on-track running on Friday, with a pitlane incident during the Bronze Test on Friday morning resulting in injuries for one of the mechanics. The team wishes him a full and speedy recovery.
Subsequently, the team opted to perform an engine change on the No. 80 Porsche 911 GT3 R, with the team working into the night to prepare the car for Saturdays running. After qualifying the following morning, Lionspeed mechanics furthermore completed a significant rebuild on the car as the team sought to root out issues. The car was ready in time for the start of the race, which is a testament to the hard work and expertise displayed by Lionspeed’s team of mechanics and engineers.
As per the regulations the engine change condemned Rindone to a start from the pitlane, following which he showed strong pace during the opening stint and made up a number of positions early on. Strong strategy from the team, bringing Rindone into the pits to perfectly coincide with a Full Course Yellow, saw the car leapfrog up to third in class. Unfortunately, a refuelling issue later compromised the strategy for the remainder of the race and dropped the No. 80 Porsche back to 11th in class.
Rindone, Kolb and Feller ran a clean race for the remainder of the contest, gaining back ground before finishing the race 38th overall and seventh in class. As a result, the team picked up nine valuable points in the Bronze Cup teams’ standings.
Patrick Kolb, team principal: “Scoring points is always important, also on a less than ideal weekend like this. We know the potential is there in the team and the driver combination to fight for wins and podiums. Now it is important to build on that for the upcoming races. My massive thanks to the entire crew for their continual hard work and effort this weekend.”
Lionspeed GP will return to action in GTWC Europe for the first round of its Sprint Cup campaign at Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands on May 16-18, where it will enter a both their Porsche 911 GT3 R. The blue and white #89 piloted by Bashar Mardini and Bastian Buus and the #80 by Gabriel Rindone and Ricardo Feller.
