Maro Engel “disappointed not to have been able to fight”

Strange, the Haupt Racing weekend. On Saturday evening, the German team found itself in the fight for the GT World Challenge Sprint Cup title after having missed the meeting in Zandvoort at the end of September. “For us it was unexpected” recognizes Maro Engel.

But on Sunday, nothing went as planned. In qualifying, on the one hand, the exercise specialist driver only achieved an eleventh place. “This poor performance remains a mystery, we are looking into it but for the moment nothing explains this lack of rhythm, we have not found any mechanical problem. And in the race we were good.”

In race 2, she could have reached second position but a 35-second penalty for a poorly attached safety harness relegated her out of the top 10. In the final race Maro Engel retired quickly after a blurry collision at the start .

“On the pit straight just before the green light, I see the car in front of me accelerating, I follow because I think it's gone. But I realize it's braking again because the light is red. At that moment if I crashed, the cars behind would hit me,” says Maro Engel.

“So I made the decision to wait until the last moment and go out to get a good start. Except when I shifted it was still red. I took my foot off the gas to avoid a big crash, even though I knew I would get an early departure penalty. Unfortunately I was very slow and the car that passed me hit me and sent me to the left into the Audi then the Ferrari »

A stupid accident which concludes a weekend to forget. “We tried everything, but Sunday was not our day, we made a few mistakes. We are disappointed not to have been able to fight until the end but hey, we must congratulate Dries, Charles and WRT, it's still sport.

Fortunately, the season is not over. Haupt Racing remains in the running for the general classification and would like to finally give victory to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 at Spa. “We achieved good times during the test day but the conditions were very difficult, part of the circuit was dry and the other wet… And then there are always teams who hide their game.”

In 2019, the former Black Falcon team, taken over by Hubert Haupt this year, took third place, 18 seconds behind the winners. “In 2017 and 2018, it was very hard to fight. Last year we were able to really exploit the potential we had, but the Porsche were too strong. This time again the conditions are likely to be very difficult, we must not make any mistakes. »

Mercedes has not won since 2013 at Spa-Francorchamps.

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