Superior brake parts cleanerSuperior brake parts cleaner

WRT score historic 1-2 in Nogaro Feature Race

Autosport

Autosport8:34am 2 April 2013

The WRT Audi squad took a one-two victory in the main race at the Nogaro FIA GT Series event on a day that the Belgian team gained revenge over Sebastien Loeb Racing.

WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra initially crossed the line in the top three positions, only for the winners on the road, Rene Rast and Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof, to receive a 30s penalty for a pitlane infraction during the mandatory mid-race pitstops.

The penalty, received because the Audi’s engine was not switched off during the pitstop, promoted the second-place WRT Audi driven by Frank Stippler and Edward Sandstrom and demoted Rast and Mayr-Melnhof to eighth overall and second in the Pro-Am class.

WRT’s domination of the results followed a penalty for McLaren MP12-4C driven by Sebastien Loeb and Alvaro Parente.

Mayr-Melnhof had trailed Loeb through the opening stint without the R8 LMS ultra dropping much more than a second off the lead.

The Austrian closed the gap to half a second before the pitstops and then a faster turnaround in the pits allowed Rast to just get out of the pits before Alvaro Parente, who had taken over from Loeb one lap before, came past.

Rast held on for a lap before he ran slightly wide into Turn 4 and misjudged move from Parente resulted in the McLaren tipping the Audi into a spin.

The Audi dropped 3.5s off the lead, but Rast needed just seven laps to chase down that deficit and was looking for a way past when the McLaren was called into the pits for a drive-through penalty.

The penalty was not for Parente’s misdemeanour but for a pitlane infraction by Loeb: he had loosened and then undone his belts before stationary during is pitstop.

That allowed Rast to cross the line 11 seconds clear of Sandstrom.

Stippler and Sandstrom came through from the back of the grid after retiring from the Qualifying Race when a fuse blew and prevented the car from re-starting.

Stippler made up ground early in the race and then another quick pitstop by Vincent Vosse’s WRT squad propelled Sandstrom into fourth place.

The Swede homed in on the Charouz Gravity Mercedes SLS AMG driven by Alon Day, who shared the car with Maximilian Buhk, but was unable to find a way past until he pulled off an opportunistic move into Turn 9 with 12 minutes to go.

The third WRT Audi, shared by Stephane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor, sneaked into third place on the road after Vanthhor passed two cars on the penultimate lap.

Parente dropped to fifth as the result of his penalty and then lost out to Vanthoor. He and Loeb subsequently dropped to 13th in the results when they were docked 30s for Parente’s clash with Rast.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Lamborghini unveils Huracan GT3

5:02pm 22 January 2015

Sportscar365
0

Lamborghini has officially taken the wraps off its new-for-2015 huracán gt3 racer. the new car was unveiled at lamborghini’s centro…  More >

TFM on final countdown to historic Bathurst 12 Hour start

12:26pm 19 January 2015

MotorNews.co.nz
0

tfm-ferrari

The first all-new zealand team to take on the premier race at bathurst – the southern hemisphere’s biggest…  More >

Australian GT grid oversubscribed for bumper 2015 season

9:51pm 18 January 2015

MotorNews.co.nz
0

AGT-Race-Start-2-Townsville1-700x440

Although grid numbers in some series have dwindled gradually in recent years, australian gt has been faced with the…  More >

Black Falcon Mercedes wins the Dubai 24 Hour

1:21am 11 January 2015

Autosport
0

1420894777

Oliver webb, yelmer buurman, abdulaziz al faisal and hubert haupt won the 10th running of the dubai 24 hours…  More >

Black Falcon leads Abu Dhabi 24 Hour at halfway mark

1:24pm 10 January 2015

Sportscar365
0

00Dagys_-2015_349297

Black falcon still has a comfortable lead as the hankook 24 hours of dubai reached its halfway mark at…  More >

“can’t think of a better way to spend a thursday,” says jono lester as i’m folded into the passenger…  More >

RACE COUNTDOWN

NZV8

Round 4

Teretonga Park, Invercargill, 25 January

V8 SuperTourers

Round 4

Waikato 250, Hampton Downs, 31 January

NZV8

Round 5

Manfeild Circuit, Feilding, 15 February

Indycars

Round 1

Brasilia Indy 300, Brasilia, 1 March

V8 Supercars

Round 1

Clipsal 500, Adelaide, 1 March

  • Latest story comments

  • CRC Motornews poll

    Who do you think will be top of the Kiwi in the 2014 V8 Supercars?

      View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...
  • Newsletter icon

    Get the latest motorsport news delivered to your inbox