Mikaël Grenier/Norbert Siedler wins Race 2 of the International GT Open at Paul-Ricard
GREAT RESULT FOR THE EMIL FREY RACING DUO AFTER A DISAPOINTING RACE 1 CONTACT ON THE FIRST LAP
Starting from seventh place on the grid, Norbert Siedler drove the first leg of the 60 minutes race at Circuit Paul-Ricard in France.
Siedler avoided a first lap incident ahead of him which involved several cars to complete lap 1 in fourth place as the full course yellow was deployed to clean up the track.
On the restart, Siedler was able to maintain fourth with constant pressure from fifth place Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GT3 driver Matt Griffin.
With 35 minutes to go as the pit window opened, Siedler came in from fourth to hand the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 to Mikaël Grenier. Following a great pit stop, the no. 14 rejoined 11th.
More importantly, once everyone cycled through, Grenier was in the lead. Hard battles behind the Canadian driver enabled him to stretch the lead to 4.5s over second place Daniel Zampieri driving the Antonelli MotorSport Mercedes AMG GT3 and Fabrizio Crestani in SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes AMG GT3.
Grenier’s lead stretch to over 5 seconds keeping the gap steady until the late stages of the race. With less than 4 minutes to go, Crestani passed Zampieri for second place and started gaining on Grenier who was struggling for pace.
But it was not enough to catch Grenier who crossed the start-finish line with 0.6s over Fabrizio Crestani/Miguel Ramos. Third place went to Daniel Zampieri/Alessio Rovera. The no. 63 Emil Frey Racing of Costa and Altoè finished in fourth place.
This was Emil Frey Racing’s second win of the weekend after the sister car won Race 1 yesterday at the hand of Albert Costa and Giacomo Altoè.
In the overall championship standings, Emil Frey Racing no.63 of Costa and Altoè leads with Grenier/Siedler in fourth place.
The next round is at Hockenheim on May 25-26.
Image: International GT Open
