Germany wins at the end of a crazy race at the FIA ​​Motorsport Games

On ne pourra pas dire que la première confrontation en piste des GT3 aux FIA Motorsport Games aura été sans suspense. Bagarres en piste, météo capricieuse … les ingrédients n’ont pas manqué pour offrir un scénario rocambolesque, accouchant du succès de la Porsche 911 GT3 R de l’Allemagne, confiée à Alfred Renauer et Steffen Görig.

After dominating qualifying, however, it is Japan which makes the best start with Hiroshi Hamaguchi (Japan – Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo) who maintains the advantage over Salih Yoluc (Turkey – Aston Martin Vantage GT3).

However, the race was quickly neutralized under safety car regime, after the violent exit of the track by Khaled Al-Mudhaf (Kuwait – Aston Martin Vantage GT3) in the first sector of the transalpine track.

After around ten minutes, the race was finally restarted with Hamaguchi breaking away from the peloton, while Rinat Salikhov (Russia) took the advantage over Miguel Ramos (Portugal – Audi R8 LMS GT3) and Salih Yoluc.

This duo will then be involved in a new incident, when Ramos is forced to go onto the grass while trying to overtake the Turk. The Portuguese spins, his Audi R8 losing its engine cover in his face, before hitting the safety rail from behind.

The weather redistributes the cards

Broken rear wing, Ramos enters the pits while the rain appears above Vallelunga making the track very tricky with several deviations in trajectory, particularly for the Ferrari Italian, or the Australian Porsche.

It was then the leader who made a mistake, giving Rinat Salikhov the lead of the race. In delicate conditions, Hamaguchi then gave in to Yoluc before the race direction deployed the Safety Car to evacuate the Lamborghini Huracan from Spain immobilized on a curb, while postponing the opening of the driver change window .

Once back in the top 15, Jean-Luc Beaubelique (France – Mercedes-AMG GT3) makes a mistake in the gravel trap and loses the benefit of a good start to the event. Helped by the marshals, the Frenchman was able to set off again but the race management at that moment waved the red flag.

It was then decided that driver changes would be made under a red flag, with all cars heading into the pit lane.

Guaranteed show

A period of uncertainty followed, with a restart initially scheduled for 15:15 p.m., but no information was provided to explain the long delay needed to get the cars back on track.

The latter finally left the pitlane ten minutes later under safety car regime, Russia leading the peloton ahead of Turkey and Japan. 21 minutes of racing are then added to the timer to allow the Silver drivers to benefit from a real relay.

And from the restart, Japan lost any chance of victory due to a puncture, while Denis Bulatov controlled Ayhancan Güven for first place. A group of six nations stands out with Russia, Turkey, Thailand, Denmark, Germany and Belgium, with a fierce fight on the track.

But the different tire strategies take their toll, Güven and Turkey losing ground, while Christina Nielsen (Denmark), Alfred Renauer (Germany) and Nico Verdonck (Belgium) begin a three-way fight for victory.

Alfred Renauer finally found the opening ten minutes from the finish on Nielsen's Honda NSX and flew to victory. The Dane resisted pressure from Nico Verdonck to finish second, with Belgium completing the podium ahead of Poland (Andrzej Lewandowski – Artur Janosz) and Great Britain (Flick Haigh – Christopher Froggatt).

France only finished 15th in this first race. The second qualifying round will take place tomorrow from 9:30 a.m., the cumulative result of the two races determining the grid for the main race which will conclude these FIA ​​Motorsport Games tomorrow at 15:05 p.m.

GT: Germany wins the opening qualification race at Vallelunga, beating Denmark and Belgium in a topsy-turvy contest.

Here's how they finished.

 https://t.co/0hjBaBzLCf#FIAMGames #RaceOfNations pic.twitter.com/1vDTi4SyHI

— FIA Motorsport Games (@fiamgames) November 2, 2019