FIA GT – Loeb Racing overcomes Team WRT

The FIA ​​GT Series qualifying race at Nogaro offered a sumptuous duel between Sébastien Loeb Racing and Team WRT. Following the penalty of McLaren MP4-12C of Mike Parisy and Andreas Zuber, the No. 9 sister car of Sébastien Loeb and Alvaro Parente started on the front row alongside the Audi R8 LMS ultra Team WRT of René Rast and Niki Mayr Melnhof. René Rast kept the advantage at the start ahead of Alvaro Parente who maintained the pressure throughout his stint on the No. 12 without managing to find the opening.

At the end of the pit stops, Niki Mayr-Melnhof had a lead of several seconds over Sébastien Loeb, Team WRT taking advantage of his experience to achieve a better stop than that of the Alsatian team. But the nine-time world champion WRC quickly caught up with the Audi leading the race and managed to take the lead six minutes from the finish by deceiving the Austrian when braking on the airfield straight. The Alsatian quickly widened the gap to cross the finish line without being worried.

Niki Mayr-Melnhof saves a front row for the Championship race after resisting the return of the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 HTP Gravity Charouz of Maximilian Buhk who shares the wheel of the No. 1 with Alan Day. The Audis once again performed well on the Paul Armagnac circuit as the No. 8 Phoenix Racing R5 LMS ultra driven by Enzo Ide and Anthony Kumpen and the No. 14 Novadriver of Cesar Campanico and Carlos Viera completed the top five at the finish. . Karun Chandhok and Jan Seyffarth took sixth place in the Seyffarth Motorsport Mercedes.

In the absence of Vita4one Racing, Team Brazil drivers Caca Bueno and Allam Khodair placed the first BMW Z4 in seventh ahead of the sister car of Ricardo Zonta and Sergio Jimenez. The second McLaren of Sébastien Loeb Racing finished in the top ten behind the Ford GT Rodrive Competiçoes of Matheus Dall'Agnol Stumpf and Claudio Ricci. Julien Jousse failed to reach the top ten with the BMW Z4 of Team India but the No. 6 received a 30-second penalty by the stewards following a collision caused by his teammate Armaan Ebrahim. Team WRT could hope to place a second Audi in the right part of the grid tomorrow, but the two R8 LMS ultras of Vanthoor-Ortelli and Sandtröm-Stippler had a disastrous race.

By taking 15th place, Fabien Barthez and Gérard Tonelli won the Gentlemen Trophy at the wheel of the Ferrari 458 Italia from Sofrev ASP.

The Championship race will be contested tomorrow from 14:15 p.m. The photo gallery of the FIA ​​GT Series at Nogaro is available on this link. To (re)watch the duel between Sébastien Loeb Racing and Team WRT for victory in the FIA ​​GT Series qualifying race at Nogaro, the full video of the event is available on this link (advance to 6:00).