WINWARD Racing celebrates a podium
Second place for the German-Texan team’s “junior car” at the second round of the 2023 GT World Challenge Endurance Cup at Le Castellet (F).
WINWARD Racing secured its first podium of the season at the second round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup at Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet in the south of France. David Schumacher (21, Salzburg), Marius Zug (20, Munich) and Miklas Born (21, Basel/CH) finished tenth overall in the number 157 Mercedes-AMG GT3, taking second place in the Gold Cup. Their team-mates Russell Ward (33, Seabrook/USA), Philip Ellis (30, Zug/CH) and Indy Dontje (30, Alkmaar/NL) were unlucky and had to park the number 57 sister car with a technical problem after leading the class early on.
Already in qualifying on the 5.8-kilometre Grand Prix circuit around 45 kilometres east of Marseille, the two WINWARD cars had impressively shown their ambitions in the fight for the class win with grid positions 1 (#57) and 2 (#157). In the race, starting driver Ward established himself at the front, but damaged the front splitter in the second part of his double stint and had to park his 550 hp car in the pits.
The juniors initially lost a few positions in the impressive field of 57 GT3 cars, but really got going as the race went on. Ten minutes before the end of the six-hour race, shortly before midnight, closing driver Zug passed the Audi ahead with a strong move and in the end missed the class win by just 2.2 seconds.
“Unfortunately we lost some time in the first two stints,” said David Schumacher. “The darker it got, the faster we were. Marius did a super job and got us second in class at the end. If the race had lasted two laps longer, the win might even have been possible. But overall we can be very happy with the result.”
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel praised his juniors in particular: “The boys handled themselves brilliantly all weekend. Marius catching the Audi shortly before the end was the deserved reward. Our veterans’ pace was also really good, they could also have had a say in the Gold Cup win. Unfortunately the splitter broke when riding the kerbs. It shouldn’t happen, but it can happen. We had strong pace with both cars, it was a good weekend for us.”
The highlight of the 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup awaits the teams on 1/2 July at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, the endurance classic and biggest GT3 race in the world on the legendary “Ardennes rollercoaster” at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.