WINWARD misses the title by a whisker

Thanks to a strong performance in the race, WINWARD Racing scored a double podium at the fifth and final round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup at Circuit Catalunya near Barcelona and only just missed the Gold Cup teams’ title. The two Mercedes-AMG GT3 of juniors David Schumacher (21, Salzburg/A), Miklas Born (21, Basel/CH) and Marius Zug (20, Munich) and of veterans Russell Ward (34, Seabrook/USA), Philip Ellis (30, Zug/CH) and Indy Dontje (30, Alkmaar/NL) finished 14th and 15th overall after three turbulent hours.

As second and third in their class, the WWR sextet also stepped onto the Gold Cup podium. This classification is reserved for cars whose driver line-up has a combined FIA rating of at most Gold-Gold-Silver. While Schumacher, Zug and Born narrowly missed the Gold Cup drivers’ title but could still look back on a positive season as third in the final standings, the strong performance of both WWR cars almost gave the team from Altendiez the teams’ title.

With grid positions 29 for the juniors and 32 for the “old hands”, the starting situation for the three-hour race on the 4.6-kilometre Grand Prix circuit outside the Catalan capital did not look very rosy. But while starting driver Russell Ward in the number 57 car lost a few positions in the opening scramble and dropped out of the top 40, David Schumacher got going straight away and handed the number 157 sister car over to Miklas Born in 20th at the first driver change.

Thanks to clever timing, both WWR cars benefited from a yellow phase during the pit stops, so that Born and Ward’s replacement Indy Dontje were already 17th and 29th at the restart. Now it was up to Dontje in particular to fire up the imaginary turbo and charge forward. The Dutchman did so with such skill that the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with the Techemet lettering went into the final stint in 16th and 18th, second and third in class, after handing over to Marius Zug and Philip Ellis respectively.

The fact that Ellis in particular then proved to be the fastest Gold Cup driver no longer changed that order. A half-hour neutralisation because of an oil spill and two more Full Course Yellows due to incidents in the final hour played a major part in slowing the WWR closing drivers’ charge, so a serious attack on the class rival directly ahead was no longer possible. In the end, exactly one second was missing to the class win.

With the juniors’ second place, WINWARD Racing drew level on points with the Audi team that had led on its own until then, but missed the title because of a worse individual result. At least all six WINWARD drivers stood on the Gold Cup podium for the first time this season.

WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel was accordingly satisfied: “Unfortunately we didn’t get qualifying perfect, but we were well organised in the race. It’s a pity we missed the teams’ championship so narrowly, because it would have been a well-deserved reward for the tireless effort of the whole team. Without the long interruptions in the last hour we would certainly have had a chance of the win and therefore the title, because the 57 in particular was the fastest Gold Cup car in the field in the final stint. But ifs and buts don’t count in racing. Now we want to catch our breath briefly and then focus fully on the DTM season finale.”

It takes place from 20 to 22 October at the Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg. And even though Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD with Lucas Auer and David Schumacher can no longer join the fight for the championship, the goal is clear: to round off this rather mixed DTM season with one more podium!