Sebastien Loeb and Alavaro Parente claimed victory in the qualifying race at the Slovakia Ring FIA GT Series round.
Parente jumped from eighth on the grid to second at the start aboard his Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren MP4-12C and then Loeb was able to pass race leader Niki Mayr-Melnhof’s WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra straight after the mid-race pitstop sequence.
Parente said: “I did things a bit different at the start and was a lot better than last time at Zandvoort [in July]. I risked a bit by going to the outside and I got into second.”
WRT duo Stephane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor came from ninth on the grid to claim second place right at the end when Alon Day took a drive-through penalty in the lead Charouz Mercedes SLS AMG.
Day, who shared the car with Maximilian Buhk, was penalised for contact when he passed Mayr-Melnhof for second on lap 21 of the 27-lap race.
Peter Kox and Stefan Rosina took the final place on the podium in the best of the Reiter-run Blancpain Lamborghini Gallardo LP560s, while fourth went to the second Loeb McLaren shared by Mike Parisy and Andreas Zuber.
Mayr-Melnhof and team-mate Rene Rast, who led to the pitstops from pole position, ended up fifth. Day and Buhk crossed the line in 10th place.
Victory in the Pro-Am Cup and sixth place overall went to Sergei Afanasiev and Andreas Simonsen in the second Charouz Mercedes.
