Second podium for Mikaël Grenier at Silverstone
MIKAËL GRENIER AND TEAMMATE NORBERT SIEDLER HAD QUALIFIED SECOND FOR RACE 2 BEHIND THE SISTER CAR AT EMIL FREY RACING
Qualifying session took place this morning prior to the afternoon Race 2 and again Emil Frey Racing occupied the front row for the race with Grenier Siedler four tenths of a second from Costa/Altoè.
It was Canadian Grenier who took the green flag in the #14 for Race 2 and at the start was able to keep second place with the #63 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO in the lead with Alberto Costa at the wheel. In third was Fabrizio Crestani for SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes AMG GT3.
Costa managed to build a gap growing with every lap until the mandatory driver change and Mikaël Grenier kept Crestani behind with a gap of just over a second. By the time Grenier came in for the #14 stop(with 34 minutes to go), Costa had built an 8.5s lead.
Depending on the previous position you had finish in the prior race, there is a pitstop handicap that comes along with it. And this shuffled the order once the pitstops rounds were completed.
The #63 of Costa pitted with 30 minutes to go. Once everyone had completed their stops, it was Andrés Saravia in the and when teammate Altoè came out of the pits, the order was the Teo Martín Motorsport McLaren 720S of Saravia leading with the #63 of Altoè/Costa in second then the other Teo Martín Motorsport McLaren 720S of Martin Kodric in third and #14 of Norbert Siedler/Grenier in fourth.
A great battle followed for a podium finish between Saravia and Altoè in one with Kodric and Siedler in another. In the closing stages, the duo of Kodric and Siedler closed the gap to the leaders and with four minutes to go the first four positions were just over one second apart. Until Siedler lost a bit of ground.
And on the last lap, there was quite a bit of a shuffle as Kodric, who had seriously fell behind the leading duo, initially got passed by Siedler and then was hit from behind by Miguel Ramos in the SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes AMG GT3 who then passed Siedler for third.
At the checkered flag, it was Savaria, Altoè, Ramos and Siedler. But then, penalties were given to the winning duo of Savaria/Rueda for not complying with the minimum pit stop time(a one second penalty) and also to Ramos/Crestani for causing a collision against Kodric on the last lap.
This promoted the #63 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO of Costa/Altoè to first place and demoted Savaria/Rueda to second place. In third, it was Mikaël Grenier/Norbert Siedler.
Reflecting on the weekend, Mikaël Grenier highlighted the team work: “The weekend was ok for us. Our goal is to help the team and the sister car at this point. We did all we could on that side so we can be happy about that.”
Norbert Siedler went a little further into explaining the result they were looking for today: “We pretty much knew after the weekend at the Red Bull Ring that we had no chances of winning the drivers’ championship. So, our goal is now to support the team and the number 63 to win the championships. We aimed to finish in fourth place on Sunday to avoid a handicap for the race at Barcelona.”
The next event will be at the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit on Sept. 21-22.
Image: Emil Frey Racing
