- Lionspeed GP heads to Misano to continue GTWC Europe Sprint Cup Season
- Team aims to build on momentum from debut win in GTWC at Zandvoort
- Busy summer months see team compete in 24H Spa, 12H Paul Ricard and Le Mans Classic
Lionspeed GP is ready to continue its GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup campaign at Misano. Gabriel Rindone, Ricardo Feller, Bashar Mardini and Bastian Buus will return to action as the Sprint Cup holds its first race meeting since May. The team heads to Italy for the latest stop on a packed summer schedule that has already featured the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, Le Mans Classic and the Michelin 12H Paul Ricard.
Lionspeed will field its two-car Bronze Cup entry, running the pair of Porsche 911 GT3 Rs as part of a record 44-car grid at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. After kicking off their season by taking the team’s first victory in the championship at Zandvoort, Bashar Mardini and Bastian Buus once again team up to pilot the No. 89 car. Gabriel Rindone shares the sister No. 80 Porsche with Ricardo Feller.
Thanks to their Zandvoort victory, Mardini and Buus enter the Misano weekend second in the Bronze Cup standings, only 4,5 points off the championship lead. They will seek to further progress their championship bid, while Rindone and Feller will aim to kickstart their campaign after a challenging Zandvoort weekend.
Misano is set to present the team with a number of unique challenges. The Italian circuit, best known for hosting motorcycle racing, is known for being hard to overtake at, making qualifying particularly important. However, with 44 cars all seeking to set a time on the 4.2-kilometer circuit, timing a qualifying run to have sufficient track space will be crucial.
Additionally, the opening race of the weekend on Saturday is set to start shortly before sunset and will run into the darkness, providing drivers with another variable to overcome. The second race, held on Sunday, will start at a more conventional start time of 14:45. All qualifying sessions and races will be streamed live on the GT World YouTube channel.
For Lionspeed, the Misano event marks the latest fixture on what has been a packed summer schedule for the team. Just a few weeks ago, Rindone and Feller, together with team principal Patrick Kolb as well as Riccardo Pera were in action at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa – the biggest GT3 race in the world.
There, a highly competitive outing for the team and a real chance at a landmark result went unfulfilled. After qualifying ninth, the No. 80 Porsche (which featured a special Art Car livery created by Berlin-based artist Luis West) displayed impressive race pace. After Feller captured the Bronze Cup lead overnight, the car remained in contention for the class victory until four hours to go, when contact with a backmarker caused a puncture and an additional pitstop. Although the team pushed hard to recover after a subsequent drivethrough penalty, it finished fourth and missed a podium by just half a minute.
From there, the team had little time to rest as the very next weekend it was spread across two different events on two of France’s most well-known circuits. In Le Castellet, Lionspeed’s Porsche 992 GT3 Cup made its racing debut in the Michelin 12H Paul Ricard. Kolb was back in action for the second endurance race in as many weekends, sharing the cockpit with Patric Niederhauser and Jose Garcia, with the latter making his first racing appearance since a crash at Portimao and a lengthy recovery earlier in the year.
After twelve grueling hours, characterized by intense heat, Kolb, Niederhauser and Garcia were classified third in the the 992 Pro Car class.
Meanwhile, some 900 kilometers to the northwest, the Lionspeed Classic division was in action at the biggest event on the historic racing calendar: Le Mans Classic. As part of a weekend filled with some of the greatest cars that the sport has ever seen, Lionspeed competed in both the Endurance Racing Legends races as well as the Porsche Classic Race.
In a particular highlight, the team was thrilled to reunite with Richard Lietz the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR he raced in the Le Mans Series in the early stages of his now illustrious Porsche career. Lietz, now a six-time 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner, shared driving duties with Johannes Dujsik. The all-Austrian lineup most notably scored a podium in class during the second Endurance Racing Legends race on Sunday. Tim Mol also completed his first race at the legendary Circuit de La Sarthe, driving the #82 Porsche 911 2.0L SWB in the Porsche Classic Race, thus further building Lionspeed Classic Division’s presence and reputation in the historic racing world.
