Nicolas Schatz does not miss his debut in Dijon

For the debut of the Schatz-Lestienne structure in GT4, Nicolas Schatz, seven-time French mountain champion, and Alain Gaunot won the first race in Dijon in FFSAGT this Saturday.

An hour earlier, pole sitter Olivier Pernaut (Audi R8 LMS GT4 n°48 – Orhes Racing) had seen Sylvain Noël (Porsche Cayman GT4 n°11 – Racing Technology) take the best at the start, before regaining the advantage after a few laps.

The former 2015 French champion, then in the GT3 era, slightly widens the gap without completely distancing the Porsche Cayman of the boss-driver of Racing Technology. Behind, it's Stéphane Tribaudini (Alpine A110 GT4 n°36 – CMR) which makes the show by moving up from 17th position on the grid, to fourth place, before diving first into the pit lane at the opening of the driver change window .

Saintéloc believed in it

After this procedure, it is Grégory Guilvert (Audi R8 LMS GT4 n°42 – Saintéloc Racing) who regains control of the race but remains under threat from the Ginetta G55 GT4 n°8 – SpeedCar of Benjamin Lariche and theAlpine A110 GT4 n°26 – CMR of Soheil Ayari.

But suddenly, theAlpine A110 of the former French champion had to stop at the side of the track, while the Ginetta G55 n°8 was penalized by a drive-through for infringement in the pit lane, the engine not having, according to the management of race, not been cut.

Grégory Guilvert controls the end of the race and seems able to win, but the Ginetta G55 GT4 n°71 – Schatz-Lestienne by Nicolas Schatz and Alain Gaunot comes back strong at the end of the race with the multiple French mountain champion.

Visibly faster with “fresher” rubber, Schatz took advantage of the last corner to overtake the leading Audi to take the checkered flag ahead of Guilvert by 46 thousandths.

The podium is completed by the Mercedes-AMG GT4 n°88 – AKKA-ASP of Thomas Drouet and Benjamin Ricci, which precedes sister car n°87 – AKKA-ASP of Jim Pla and Jean-Luc Beaubelique.

Jimmy Antunes and Sylvain Noël finished this first race in the top 5 with the first Porsche Cayman GT4 n°11 – Racing Technology. The Lariche – Consani duo finished 6th ahead of the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT68 – Muller Racing of Thomas Laurent (who was making his GT4 debut in Dijon), associated with Alexandre Bardinon.

In Am, Rodolphe Wallgren (Ginetta G55 GT4 n°4 – SpeedCar) wins.

Race 1 ranking