WINWARD’s strong run continues
Both WINWARD Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 celebrated a podium at the GT World Challenge Europe round at the Nürburgring.
Team WINWARD Racing also finished the second appearance of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS on German soil within eight days with two podiums. At the third of five Endurance Cup events of the season at the Nürburgring, Lucas Auer (29, Kufstein/Austria), Maro Engel (38, Monaco) and Daniel Morad (34, Markham/Canada) steered their Mercedes-AMG GT3 entered by Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER to third place. Tanart Sathienthirakul (31, Bangkok), Daan Arrow (21, Amsterdam) and Colin Caresani (20, Aerdenhout) put on a great comeback from the back of the grid in WINWARD Racing’s sister car and finished the 3-hour race second in the Silver Cup for driver line-ups with the FIA Silver rating.
From fourth on the grid, Luggi Auer came through the chaos of the first corner very well at the rolling start and settled into second from the outset. After that both the Tyrolean and, in the middle stint, his German team-mate Maro Engel, who set the fastest lap of the entire race on lap 33, put strong pressure on the leading Lamborghini without finding a way past. Only in the final stint did Daniel Morad have to let the leader go a little and drop back to third on the penultimate lap.
In the overall standings of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, which consists of five Sprint Cup and five Endurance Cup events, second-placed Auer and Engel moved to within two points of the leading duo. Two events remain in each of the two sub-series.
The “juniors” in the Silver Cup car also put on a great show. Starting only from 50th and last on the grid after an accident by Tanart Sathienthirakul in morning qualifying, the Thai driver and his two Dutch team-mates worked their way bravely through the impressive field of GT3 cars from nine different brands, gained no fewer than 25 positions and finished second in their class, consolidating third place in the Silver Cup. Daan Arrow and Colin Caresani in particular set lap times at the level of the front-runners on the 5.1-kilometre Grand Prix circuit in the Eifel.
WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel was again full of praise for his team after the Nürburgring weekend: “First of all, my thanks go to the mechanics, who put our badly damaged number 57 back into perfect condition in time for the race. Our juniors’ lap times prove that the pace for a class win or even more was definitely there. I’m also very happy with the podium for our Pro car, even though of course it’s a shame to lose a position four minutes from the end after such a hard fight. But with Luggi and Maro, and as a team, we’re still in the fight for the title. We were fast with both cars and the team again did excellent work – all of that makes me very confident for the tasks ahead.”
The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe continues with the two Sprint Cup races on 24/25 August at Magny-Cours in France. In this sub-series too, Auer and Engel are second in the standings in their “MANN-FILTER Mamba”. A week earlier, the two team-mates first face rounds 9 and 10 of the 2024 DTM, again at the Nürburgring.