Barcelona BSS: Buhk and Baumann clinch overall title
Maxi Buhk and Dominik Baumann took the overall Blancpain GT Series title, while Enzo Ide took home the Sprint Cup after a season finale won by Felix Rosenqvist and Tristan Vautier.
Winners #84 AMG Team HTP Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT3: Dominik Baumann, Maximilian Bühk
Vision Sport Agency
After a dramatic first race, in which the #58 McLaren of Rob Bell and Alvaro Parente got hit with a drive-through penalty for cutting the first corner, the overall Blancpain title was all but wrapped up.
Bell and Parente had to start down in 16th and didn’t manage to make up enough ground to get into the points, finishing 13th.
That meant the position of championship leaders Buhk and Baumann didn’t matter, as they took the title for HTP Motorsport in their Mercedes-AMG.
The duo still had a very small chance to take the Sprint Series title, but they had to win the main race and hope for a non-score for Ide in the #33 WRT Audi.
Ide started from pole after Sunday morning’s qualifying race win, and kept his head cool at the start. The Belgian let Vautier take the lead with a bold overtake around the outside of the first turn in the #88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes.
Ide also let Maxime Soulet through in the #8 Bentley and then spent the rest of his stint consolidating third.
Vautier and Soulet managed to build a comfortable gap to Ide, who was starting to hold up the #99 ROWE BMW of Philipp Eng and the #28 WRT Audi of Will Stevens. Stevens was then hit with a drive-through for punting the #19 Grasser Lamborghini out of the way at the hairpin, and dropped out of contention.
Rosenqvist took over from Vautier in the #88 and took his Mercedes to a dominant victory ahead of the #8 Bentley of Soulet and Soucek, who were hunted down until the final corner by a feisty Robin Frijns in the #33 Audi.
The #1 WRT Audi again drove a strong comeback race from 13th. Laurens Vanthoor grabbed a couple of positions in his opening stint, after which Frederic Vervisch took plenty of risks to charge up to a brilliant fourth ahead of the #63 Grasser Lambo of Mirko Bortolotti and Nicolas Pohler.
In the end, Buhk and Baumann took the overall Blancpain GT Series crown by 10 points over Bell and 22 on Vanthoor.
Ide meanwhile secured the Blancpain Sprint Cup with 102 points, 23 more than his absent teammate Christopher Mies. Baumann and Buhk were a further 12 points behind.
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