• Lionspeed GP impresses on Sprint Cup debut at Zandvoort
• Bastian Buus and Bashar Mardini take class victory from overall pole position in Race 1
• Patrick Kolb (team principal): “Overall Pole & Victory in our first Sprint Cup race is very very special.”

Lionspeed GP kicked off its GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup season in strong fashion by taking a Bronze Cup victory on debut at Zandvoort with Bastian Buus (DEN) and Bashar Mardini (CAN).

Zandvoort served as the second fixture on the Sprint Cup calendar, but the first one where the Bronze Cup joined the grid as they were absent from Brands Hatch due to space constraints. As a result, Lionspeed’s two-car Bronze entry formed part of a 41-car grid at the Dutch seaside circuit. Gabriel Rindone (UAE) and Ricardo Feller (CHE) continued their full season campaign aboard the No. 80 Porsche 911 GT3 R, while Buus and Mardini teamed up for the first time in the sister No. 89 car.

The team showed itself to be immediately competitive during the opening day of running on Friday, with Feller most notably setting the fastest time of the day of all 41 Cars in Free Practice.

This pace carried over into qualifying on Saturday morning, where Buus outpaced the rest of the field and putting the No. 89 Porsche on overall pole position with a lap of 1:32.812. Feller, meanwhile, qualified eighth overall and P3 in the Bronze Category.

The opening 60-minute race of the weekend proved to be an incident-filled affair, but Buus stayed out of trouble through a chaotic opening phase and remained in the overall lead, building up a crucial lead over the rest of the Bronze Cup field while Mardini waited to take over. Once the Canadian racer relieved Buus, he assumed the lead in the class to capture the Bronze Cup victory in 18th overall on his GT World Challenge debut.

The result marked a win on debut for all parties involved, with Lionspeed, Buus and Mardini all standing on the top step of the podium for the first time in GT World Challenge Europe.

“I’m super happy with my debut in GT World Challenge Sprint and with the team as well,” said Buus. “It’s a strong start to the 2025 season and I’m really looking forward to seeing how we can perform this year. Great job from Bashar as well for his first time in the championship. We have some stuff we can improve and some stuff we can work on, but for now we should celebrate the success as it is and enjoy that.”

On Sunday, Mardini and Rindone qualified sixth and tenth in the Bronze Cup respectively. Both cars largely remained out of trouble in a hard-fought and closely contested second contest. The No. 89 Porsche finished fifth with the No. 80 sister car coming home in eighth, thus both scoring points towards the Bronze Cup standings.

Patrick Kolb, team principal: “In general, we can look back on a very positive first weekend in Sprint Cup. An overall pole position and class victory in our first Sprint Cup race is of course something very, very special. Bashar and Bastian winning their first race together is also super special. So the potential in the team and both pairings is there. Unfortunately, we were a bit unlucky with the No. 80 car yesterday, getting taken out completely without fault in contention for a podium step. In the second race we collected some valuable points for the championship and we go from there.”

With the first Bronze Cup round completed, Buus and Mardini sit second in the drivers’ standings with 23,5 points – 3,5 points off the lead. Rindone and Feller, meanwhile, are ninth in the standings.

While the Sprint Cup season continues at Misano on July 18-20, Lionspeed GP will first tackle a pair of Endurance Cup rounds in the coming weeks. First, the team will look to put in a strong showing at the three-hour round at Monza on the first weekend of June, followed by the blue riband CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on June 25-29.