Engstler Motorsport Lamborghini claimed a pair of race wins in the Valencia round of the GT Winter Series.
The opening sprint race on Saturday was red-flagged when AF Corse Cup 1 entrant Talal Shair suffered a major impact at the start, taking contact from Mertel Motorsport’s Oscar Ryndziewicz behind, which put him in the wall and then into a secondary hit with fellow AF Corse entrant Sven Schomer. The damage took out Shair for the rest of the weekend.
At the restart Juliano Holzem led the field in the yet-to-be-homologated Evo-spec BMW. The Invitational entry was under scrutiny from Comtoyou Racing’s Matisse Lismont, in his Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo. While Lismont kept Holzem honest, the German driver was able to manage the race from the front, winning his first race at the wheel of a GT3 BMW.
Lismont finished second, winning the GT3 class, ahead of GT3 Pro class victor Jonas Karklys in third overall in the Engstler Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo II.
In the second sprint race on Sunday morning Luca Engstler geared up on pole position to race for the first time since sustaining injuries at Macau in November. For a second consecutive race, an early multi-car clash threw the contest into chaos.
Moritz Wiskirchen, in the SR Motorsport Mercedes driven by Heyer the previous day, clashed with Rafael Suzuki at the apex of Turn 1, with Suzuki’s Aston Martin collected by Alberto Duran in the AF Corse Ferrari and Plusline Racing Team’s Joachim Bolting.
Engstler continued to lead as the safety car was deployed, and upon the resumption of the race, he set about distancing himself from the field and went on to take victory ahead of Holzem and the Cup 1-winning Araujo Competicao Ferrari of Goncalo Araujo.
For the third and final race, Jonas Karklys started the Engstler Lamborghini from pole ahead of Holzem and Kobe Pauwels (Comtoyou Aston Martin) in third place.
Karklys pitted from the lead in the early stages of the 10-minute mandatory pitstop window,
while Holzem was one of the last to pit. He handed the Schubert BMW over to twin brother Sandro, who exited the pits in the lead. Engstler was in second place, and with 20 minutes remaining, he was just under four seconds behind Holzem.
Traffic would play its part in bringing the pair together with seven and a half minutes left on the clock. At Turn 1, Engstler carried more speed than Holzem, allowing him run towards Turn 2, where Holzem ran slightly wide. After running side-by-side through Turn 3, Engstler yielded at the next apex, setting up Holzem for an overtake at Turn 5.
In traffic Engstler built a cushion and claimed the overall and GT3 Pro class victory for he and Karklys. The Holzem family BMW took second overall, ahead of GT3 winners Kobe Pauwels and Matisse Lismont of Comtoyou Racing.
In GT4, SR Motorsport’s Jay Mo Hartling took victory in the opener, before handing over to Enrico Forderer who claimed top honours in race two. The pair duly teamed up in the third race to take a clean sweep, taking victory by 9.6 seconds from Tom Lebbon and McKenzy Cresswell for Elite Motorsport.
