GT4 Championships

Dutch GT4: BMW M3 GT4 takes first victory

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

The feature race of the Tango Dutch GT4 Championship at Zandvoort this afternoon was won by Sebastiaan Bleekemolen and Tim Buijs in their BMW M3 GT4. Saturday’s winner Junior Strous was in the lead for most of the race, but eventually finished in sixth place.

A hectic start saw Allard Kalff trying to take the lead as the cars went into the first corner. Unfortunately for the Mustang driver his attempt failed and rather than leading he ended up making a detour via the gravel trap and suffering a left rear puncture.

Junior Strous slowly got away from the rest of the field while Tim Buijs took back second place from Jan Joris Verheul. While Kalff came into the box to have his tyre changed it was the Corvette of Robert den Otter that ended up in the gravel at the Scheivlak corner.

Buijs was able to keep the distance to Strous at around one second, with Phil Bastiaans’ Porsche another two seconds further behind.

The Ginetta G50s seemed to like the Corvettes this race with first one of the KS Motorsport cars hitting one and then Mathijs Bakker in the Match Racing Ginetta hitting a Certainty Racing Team by Day V Tec after spinning coming out of the Audi S.

After ten laps the gap between first and sixth was still only five seconds, but things would be changing in the second part of the race and pit stops coming up. Quint Engel and Mathijs Bakker, both driving a Match Racing Ginetta G50, were shown the ‘meat ball’ and had to make an unscheduled stop.

Jan Joris Verheul was the next Ginetta driver who hit trouble when he and Rory Bertram got engaged in a fight. Out of the Kumho corner the KS Motorsport Ginetta went through the gravel before rejoining the race.

At the front Strous and Buijs had increased their lead and when the pit window opened they were within two second of each other with the third placed car of Phil Bastiaans 5.226 seconds behind.

Bastiaans was the first driver in the top 3 to make his scheduled stop and handed over his Porsche to Christiaan Frankenhout. His example was soon followed by the other teams.
Strous and Simon Knap were one of the last drivers to come in for their mandatory stops.

As all teams had completed their pit stop Strous was still in the lead, his HTP Racing Aston Martin Vantage six seconds ahead of Sebastiaan Bleekemolen in the Team Bleekemolen BMW M3 GT4 and just over ten secons over Simon Knap’s BMW M3 GT4. Vahstal (Aston) and Fridman (BMW) were given a stop and go for wrong pit stops.

Things seemed to go well for HTP Racing but with just over 8 minutes left Strous was given a stop & go penalty as well for not staying in the box for the required time. Strous left the pit 1.2 seconds earlier than allowed…a certain victory disappeared like snow in spring.

More problems for the Ginetta’s. The KS Motorsport Ginetta clipped the back of one of the Racing Team Holland Mustangs. Sanders and Kuus were both given penalties.

Just under three minutes remained in the race when Strous came in for his penalty. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen moved into the lead, with Simon Knap in second place and Christiaan Frankenhout in third. Strous dropped back to sixth

Sebastiaan Bleekemolen crossed the line five seconds ahead of Simon Knap, securing a BMW M3 GT4 one-two finish. Frankenhout took the final podium spot, 7.1s behind the winner.