At the last round of the Endurance Cup of the FANATEC GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, the Car Collection Motorsport team now also secured the team championship in the Pro-Am classification after winning the drivers’ title, although the Porsche 911 GT3 R with the #24 and drivers Ivan Jacoma, Niki Leutwiler and Alex Fontana narrowly missed the podium after a run-off in fourth place. The sister car with the #56, which was run in cooperation with Dinamic GT, did not finish.
After the driver crew of the #24 had already clinched the title in the drivers’ championship at the penultimate race of the season, the three drivers Niki Leutwiler, Ivan Jacoma and Alex Fontana were determined to also secure the team championship at the season finale in Barcelona. Due to the large lead, the trio only had to finish the race with the Porsche 911 GT3 R, which was entered in cooperation with Centri Porsche Ticino.
Under these good conditions, Peter Schmidt’s team went into the race weekend highly motivated. In qualifying, however, the driver trio had a lot of bad luck with the heavy traffic of the more than 50 participating vehicles, so that due to a lack of free laps, only the last starting position in the Pro-Am classification was recorded in the end. In the race, all three drivers were able to fight their way back up to the podium with lap times at the absolute top level. But then final driver Alex Fontana slid out of the race on a puddle of oil belonging to a competitor and lost a lot of time as a result, which he was unable to make up due to the caution phase triggered by the contaminated track. Fourth place in class was nevertheless enough to win the team championship in this classification.
The #56 Porsche entered under Dinamic GT with Car Collection was driven by Daniele Di Amato, Jop Rappange and Tanart Sathienthirakul in the Silver Cup. In qualifying, the driver crew struggled with the traffic on the track, much like the sister car, resulting in only seventh place on the grid for the class. In the race, both Rapppange and Sathienthirakul were able to make up many places and move up to third place. Final driver Daniele Di Amato initially held this position without any problems, but subsequently had to end the race prematurely after a ride with a damaged vehicle in the pits.
With the double success in the driver and team championship Car Collection Motorsport could end the season of the Endurance Cup of the FANATEC GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS again with a success, after the Hessian team had already driven on the championship podium of the Sprint Cup in the previous year.
Peter Schmidt, Team Principal: “I am highly satisfied with the way the season has gone. The GT World Challenge is one of the most fiercely contested championships in the world and to have won both titles here in the Pro-Am Cup makes me very proud. To achieve these good results in the first year with the new Porsche is a great achievement by the entire team. A big thank you to the whole team for that!”
