Blancpain Sprint: Rast and Ide win second Zandvoort race
WRT Audi drivers Rene Rast and Enzo Ide came from behind to win the Main Race at the Zandvoort round of the Blancpain Sprint Series
Ide completed his stint in third position aboard the Audi R8 LMS ultra before Rast resumed in second behind Maximilian Buhk in the HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG just before a short rain shower.
Rast closed down on Buhk in the Mercedes he shared with Maiximilian Gotz in the wet conditions and got a run on the leader down the back straight with 20 minutes of the race to go and was able to make the pass into the Hans Ernst Bocht.
Rast pulled away from the Mercedes, which subsequently spun, and then had to fight a rear-guard action against Dominik Baumann in the Schubert BMW Z4 to seal victory.
Rast said: "We had a small discussion on the radio about the weather and, in the end, I made the call to stay on slicks, and it paid off.
"The Mercedes was way slower than us in those conditions; Max was really struggling with his rear tyres."
Baumann and GT rookie Thomas Jager ended up just over a second down at the finish on the first appearance in the championship for the Schubert team.
Team Herberth, another BSS newcomer, ended up a distant third with its Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by Robert Renauer and Jaap van Lagen.
Van Lagen exploited the Porsche's wet-weather prowess to come from seventh after the pitstops to take the final podium spot.
Buhk and Gotz ended up fourth ahead of Qualifying Race winners Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk in the best of the Grasser Lamborghinis.
Proczyk led from Gotz to the pitstops, but a disastrous tyre change and then a spin from Bleekemolen on his outlap left them as low as tenth.
The second WRT Audi, which had finished third in yesterday's opening race with Laurens Vanthoor and Cesar Ramos, ended up tenth after Vanthoor came into the pits to change to wets during the rain shower.
Results - 30 laps: Pos Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Ide/Rast WRT Audi 1h01m45.733s 2. Baumann/Jager Schubert BMW +1.366s 3. Renauer/van Lagen Herberth Porsche +20.732s 4. Buhk/Gotz HTP Mercedes +37.996s 5. Proczyk/Bleekemolen Grasser Lamborghini +49.430s 6. Landmann/Halek Grasser Lamborghini +49.901s 7. Rosina/Kox Reiter Lamborghini +50.135s 8. Stumpf/Brito Brazil BMW +1m16.398s 9. Abril/Lisowski WRT Audi +1m26.781s 10. Ramos/Vanthoor WRT Audi +1m39.434s 11. Mayr-Melnhof/Winkelhocke Phoenix Audi +1m39.963s 12. Colombo/Fumanelli ROAL BMW +1m40.422s 13. Latif/Basseng Phoenix Audi +1 lap 14. Jimenez/Bueno Brazil BMW +1 lap 15. Lloyd/Pentus Bhaitech McLaren +1 lap 16. Ebrahim/Toril Fortec Mercedes +1 lap Retirements: Pantano/Onidi Bhaitech McLaren Rusinov/Ortelli G-Drive Audi
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