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GT Open: Narac-Pilet win race 1 at Magny-Cours

© gtsport.es

The International GT Open has gone to the Magny-Cours circuit for their own Tour de France. On the 4.411 km / 2.741 miles long circuit it was the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3 RSR of Raymond Narac and Patrick Pilet that took a deserved win in the first race of the weekend.

After one lap it was Alvaro Barba in the AF Corse Ferrari who was in the lead. Gianluca Roda had a horrible opening lap and dropped to 13th position. The safety car came out on the second lap when Max Wiser spun his Aston Martin Vantage GT2 into the gravel trap at the exit of the first corner.

Shortly after the Villois Racing Aston was pulled out of the gravel and back on track – throwing gravel all over the place – the safety car came back in and the race was restarted. Barba and Giammaria and Dayraut kept their top three positions. Raymond Narac managed to pass the Sunred SR21 of Jordi Gené and moved into sixth on lap four.

Dayraut came under pressure from Frezza and Mullen and soon after Frezza passed Dayraut at turn six the #72 Ferrari F430 GT3 spun off and into the gravel. Mullen was unable to take advantage of the situation and instead of getting ahead of Marco Frezza he was attacked from behind and being passed by Narac. The IMSA Performance Matmut driver immediately went after the Kessel Racing Ferrari F430 GT3.
Exactly one lap later Frezza was passed by Narac, Mullen and Griffin making it a SuperGT top five.

Alvaro Barba – fully recovered from his incident at Spa-Francorchamps – kept posting fast lap times that were over a second a lap quicker than Raffaele Giammaria. Meanwhile CRS Racing’s Klaas Hummel went wide and after rally crossing with his Ferrari F430 GT2 he returned to the track, albeit down in 17th position.

After 10 laps Barba was leading the Edil Cris Racing Team Ferrari by 5.609s, with Narac another 3.974s further down in third place. Marco Frezza retained his GTS lead, six seconds ahead of Gabriele Lancieri.

Thomas Gruber and Jordi Gene were the next drivers to hit trouble. The Porsche 997 GT3 R and the SR21 collided on track, sending Gruber into a spin and into the wall. Gruber retired the Autorlando Sport car at the pit entry with his right rear wheel in an awkward position and fluids coming from the car. Gene dropped to tenth place, while the Sunred team manager was summoned to the race director and the #14 was given a drive through penalty later on. As the leaders had completed 13 laps Max Wiser spun his Aston GT once again, this time without any consequences.

42 minutes were left on the clock when the driver change pit window opened. Raymond Narac was the first driver in the top five to come in and hand over the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR to Patrick Pilet, At the front Mullen had closed the gap to Giammaria and only a few tenths of a second behind the Italian.

After 17 laps Barba came in and handed over the race-leading car to Pierre Kaffer. This promoted Giammaria into the lead, with Mullen right on his tail. Just before the end of the lap Mullen took advantage of a small mistake by Giammaria and moved into the lead. Giammaria pitted at the end of the next lap.

Mullen came in at the end of lap 22, together with all the other cars that had not made their mandatory stop yet. Due to the ’success’ time added to their regular pit stop the #8 AF Corse car dropped to third behind the Edil Cris Racing Team Ferrari of Enrico Toccacelo and the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche.

Pilet was all over the Italian as the two completed their 23rd lap and the French driver was clearly looking for an opportunity to pass the Ferrari and move into the lead. Half way through lap 24 he managed to do just that and he was soon off into the distance.

Richard Lietz posted the fastest race lap on lap 25. Already back in sixth place after taking over from Gianluca Roda his lap time was six seconds quicker than Jack Gerber, who was some 5 seconds ahead of him and a second and a half quicker than race leader Pilet. Within a lap Lietz had reduced the gap to the #6 AF Corse car to just three tenths of a second and took fifth place a few corners later. The gap to fourth and third place was still five and ten seconds though.

Lietz showed the Porsches do like Magny Cours as at the end of lap 29 he was already on the rear bumper of Chris Niarchos and by the time the two reached Adelaide hairpin Lietz had moved into fourth place.

In the final 13 minutes the teams consolidated their positions. The gaps were too big for anyone to try and improve their position; only Pedro Couceiro closed in on Jack Gerber and was only a few tenths of a second behind after 36 laps.

With just three minutes to go Lucas Guerrero in the Villois Racing Vantage spun at turn 12, but like team mate Max Wiser earlier in the race he rejoined without any problems.

On the last lap Patrick Pilet slowed down a bit and cruised to victory. He crossed the line to take the chequered flag after 39 laps. Toccacelo finished in second place five seconds behind Pilet and Kaffer took third place almost eight seconds behind Pilet.

Pedro Couceiro was the first GTS car to take the chequered flag, taking the win for Kessel Racing. Lorenzo Bontempelli finished in second place, while Alex Mortimer put the RPM Ford GT in third place.