Both the Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (#91, Daniel Allemann / Ralf Bohn / Alfred Renauer) and CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (#85, Charles Putman / Charles Espenlaub / Joe Foster / Shane Lewis) took this morning’s restart from the front row of the grid, although an electric start from the second Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (#92, Jürgen Häring / Bobby Gonzales / Marco Seefried / Daniel Allemann) from the second row meant CP Racing had already fallen back to 3rd by the second corner. Opting to run long when the lead #91 Herberth Porsche pitted for fuel, CP Racing soon hit the front, and was even able to extend its advantage when a well-timed Code 60 caution period coincided with the American team’s first pit stop of the day.
Now on alternate refueling strategies, both teams continued to swap the lead throughout the afternoon until scintillating stints from Herberth Motorsport at three-quarter distance allowed the Bavarian squad to pull ahead.
Herberth Motorsport eventually completed 367 laps of the 4.381km Hungaroring en-route to its fourth victory of the season. The result simultaneously marks the sixth consecutive win for a Porsche in the 24H SERIES in 2021.
“It was a cool race for us,” Alfred Renauer explained to radiolemans.com’s Lukas Gajewski. “This was a very hard fight with the CP Racing car, because they had a good strategy, so we had to give it our all. Thanks to the whole team. They did a great job, like the whole season, and I’m really happy with this result. Hopefully we can do this again in Sebring!”
Behind CP Racing, which equaled its best result in 2nd, the Rutronik Racing by TECE Audi R8 LMS GT3 (#18, Michael Doppelmayr / Pierre Kaffer / Swen Herberger) was a surprise podium finisher having moved into 3rd overall just six minutes from the end.
In a courteous gesture to its fellow Audi customer, long-time podium contender Car Collection Motorsport (#500, Martin Rump / Martin Lechmann / Nathanaël Berthon) moved aside in the closing stages of the race to allow Rutronik Racing to maximize its points in the title hunt. A near-flawless run for Car Collection Motorsport was blighted only by a faulty radio, which led to miscommunication between driver and mechanics, and the Audi running out of fuel on-track in the early going.
An equally impressive run from the Willi Motorsport by Ebimotors Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (#955, Fabrizio Broggi / Sergiu Nicolae / Sabino de Castro) saw the 991-class winner round out the overall top five, the Romanian-Italian team having overtaken JR Motorsport (#2, Ted van Vliet / Ruud Olij / Bas Schouten) on merit on the start-finish straight. 6th overall was nevertheless an impressive result for the latter’s BMW M6 GT3 on the car’s series debut.
The RD Signs racing team Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo (#720, Audrius Butkevicius / Nicola Michelon / Paulius Paskevicius) finished 7th in the GT division to secure a hard-earned GTX-class win. Running the 12-hour event without ABS, the Raging Bull first lost time in the gravel trap – which brought out the fifth of the event’s seven Code 60 caution periods – and twice lost its right rear wheel on its way onto pit road. The Lithuanian team’s efforts were aided however by the Vortex V8 Vortex 1.0 (#701, Philippe Bonnel / Gilles Courtois / Nicolas Nobs), which finished 2nd in-class but fell an hour behind its category rival at the beginning of the event with alternator problems.
Despite late-race drama for the ST Racing BMW M4 GT4 (#438, Samantha Tan / Chandler Hull / Jon Miller), which suffered a broken diff mount quite literally at the 11th hour, the Canadian team recovered to finish 8th in the GT division and secure its third GT4-class win of the season. The result moves ST Racing to the top of the Overall GT Teams’ standings, narrowly ahead of Vortex V8.
MP Racing (#58, Thomas Gostner / David Gostner / Corinna Gostner) completed the GT division top 10. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 suffered significant front-end damage half-way through the race after making heavy contact with the barriers at turn four, but the Italian team would eventually return to the track following an impressive three-hour pit stop to affect repairs.
Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing sealed its fourth consecutive TCE win of the season at the Hankook 12H HUNGARY. The #112 Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR DSG (#112, Miloš Pavlović / Christoph Lenz / Jasmin Preisig / Emil Heyerdahl) donned a distinctive green livery this weekend in a collaborative effort with the Greenhope Foundation, a charitable organization operating under the ‘Sport against Cancer’ banner.
“This was a great race,” Jasmin Preisig explained to radiolemans.com’s Lukas Gajewski. “We had no problems, we always had good pace, and we are very happy with this result. It’s probably the biggest win for us, and an important one for Greenhope and Sport against Cancer.”
Autorama’s second Volkswagen Golf (#1, Constantin Kletzer / Lukasz Stolarcyk / Emil Heyerdahl / Fabian Danz) finished 3rd, though the pair were ultimately split by the hard-charging AC Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS (#188, Stéphane Perrin / Mathieu Detry). A fourth TCR podium of the season for AC Motorsport, despite early brake issues, means the Belgian team has now moved to within striking distance of the #1 Autorama Volkswagen in the Overall TCE Teams’ standings.
The TCX-class winning Munckhof Racing BMW M4 GTR (#210, Eric van den Munckhof / Marco Poland) survived a fraught run to finish 4th in the TCE division ahead of Red Camel-Jordans.nl (#101, Ivo Breukers / Luc Breukers / Rik Breukers). The latter, which ran an Audi RS 3 LMS for the first time this weekend, led the division outright in the early going but mechanical gremlins eventually led to the car’s retirement at half-distance.
The season finale of this year’s 24H SERIES powered by Hankook will be held on 18-19-20 November at the Sebring International Raceway in the United States of America. The inaugural Hankook 24H SEBRING will mark the first time that the Floridian circuit has hosted a 24-hour international motor race. Further details can be found on www.24hseries.com.