Strong WWR team performance goes unrewarded
WINWARD Racing impresses with great fighting spirit at the 24 Hours of Spa. Ward/Ellis/Dontje finish fourth in class, retirement for the juniors.
Effort and performance were right, but Lady Luck was not on WINWARD Racing’s side at the biggest GT3 race in the world, the CrowdStrike Spa 24 Hours. After 24 intense hours on the legendary 7.004-kilometre Ardennes rollercoaster, the German-Texan team had to settle for 38th overall for Russell Ward (33, Seabrook/USA), Philip Ellis (30, Zug/CH) and Indy Dontje (30, Alkmaar/NL) in the third round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup. That put the number 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 fourth in the Gold Cup, a classification reserved for cars whose driver line-up has a combined FIA rating of at most Gold-Gold-Silver.
The WWR junior team of David Schumacher (21, Salzburg), Marius Zug (20, Munich) and Miklas Born (21, Basel/CH), on the other hand, had to park the number 157 sister car with a technical problem around half-distance after a strong opening phase.
Qualifying, split into four parts and shaped by the typical Spa weather, was already eventful; each driver of a car has to contest one segment. While the first part (Q1) was held on a dry track, the heavens opened from Q2 onwards. Bad luck for the teams tackling the 24 hours with only three drivers, because under the regulations only four-driver teams may take part in Q1. These had a huge advantage in the average lap time of all their drivers, which decides the grid, over cars that had to complete their three segments (Q2 to Q4) entirely in the wet. Like the WWR cars, which found themselves 43rd (#157) and 52nd (#57) in the impressive field of 70 GT3 supercars.
Undeterred, the Altendiez trios set off on their charge after the start of the 24-hour spectacle on Saturday at 4.30 pm. Junior Zug in particular put on a real firework display in his first double stint and handed the #157 over to team-mate Schumacher after just over two hours as Gold Cup leader in 15th overall (!). At that point their colleagues had just taken a blow: a spin by Dontje at Pouhon cost the number 57 car two laps.
But even greater misfortune awaited the juniors: after Zug, Schumacher and Born had run steadily around the top 20, the front splitter of their 550 hp car came loose twice in the night. When the same defect occurred a third time shortly before half-distance, and the front splitter mounts were no longer in the best condition either, the WWR management reluctantly decided to withdraw the previously so promisingly placed car.
So it was left to the veterans in the #57 to continue their comeback from 66th after the early mishap. Dontje, Ellis and Ward did so with flying colours. Given the circumstances, 38th overall was a good final result, but the hoped-for jump onto the Gold Cup podium was missed.
“We are of course disappointed, because we would have deserved a better result,” commented team principal Christian Hohenadel. “After the bad luck in qualifying, our juniors in particular gave us a lot of joy. The boys really pushed until the retirement. Our veterans didn’t bury their heads in the sand after the early time loss, but kept giving everything, just like the pit crew. They all deserve praise and recognition! These are the tough laws of endurance racing. And the next big challenges are already waiting for us.”
The fourth and penultimate round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS takes place on 29/30 July at the Nürburgring. But first, next weekend the busy WWR squad faces the DTM season highlight at the Norisring. On the spectacular 2.1-kilometre street circuit beside Nuremberg’s Dutzendteich lake, Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD with runner-up Lucas Auer and David Schumacher is aiming for its first podiums of the 2023 DTM season.