Renaud Kuppens and Holger Harmsen were the winners of the AM and LAMBORGHINI CUP classes at the end of the first Super Trofeo World Final race at Jerez, where the action was non-stop leaving the outcome uncertain even after the chequered flag.
At the start Stéphane Lemeret took advantage of a mistake by Stéphane Tribaudini to slip past his VSR rival into the lead with his CMR Huracan, while Kuppens (Boutsen VDS) was finding it difficult to keep a hard-charging McGee (WTR Andretti) at bay.
At turn 4, however, there was already contact between a couple of cars in the middle of the group and the two men who paid the price were chiefly Garrett Adams and Anthony Bullock; the Ansa Motorsports driver found himself with his rear wing ripped off and had to return to the pits, while the One Motorsports driver got stuck in the sand, bringing the Safety Car out.
At the restart on lap 4, McGee broke the ice and went to overtake Kuppens, but as the pit-stop window opened Sam Shi (Flying Lizards) got stuck in the sand at turn 10 and the situation was frozen again with a Full Course Yellow and a new Safety Car.
The restart was given on lap 13 with 19 minutes remaining on the clock and while Piergiacomo Randazzo - who had replaced Tribaudini – ran away from the rest of the field leaving all the battles behind him, two laps later there was another SC caused by an incident in turn 5 involving Changwoo Lee (SQDA-Grit), who lost control, bouncing off the right barriers and ending up in the middle of the track on the racing line.
The safety car returned to the pits on lap 18 with just under 4 minutes remaining and sparks began to fly for the top positions, but a contact between Paolo Biglieri and Laurent Hurgon saw the latter remain stuck in the gravel when the cars tackled their final lap.
It was a decisive moment because Randazzo was attacked by McIntosh and the two went into turn 9 with the VSR driver overdoing his braking and making contact with the American; Kuppens tried to take advantage but noticed the yellow flags at the next turn and rolled off the accelerator.
Randazzo was now back in the lead, while Adrian Lewandowski was also pushing hard and moved up to third, but immediately after the race both of them were handed penalties: 5 seconds for Randazzo for the collision with McIntosh, and 30 seconds for the Polish driver for having overtaken under yellow flags, meaning he missed out on the podium.
Kuppens won in AM to the delight of Boutsen VDS ahead of his class rivals, starting with the WTR Andretti duo, McIntosh/McGee, while Randazzo/Tribaudini took a disappointing third place.
Han was fourth with the Target Racing ST, and Lemeret/Gillion (CMR) took home a Top 5 placement that was even more deserved considering how things went in the second part of the race, followed by Leewattanavalagul/Phuakkarawut (YK Motorsports) and Huang/Tai (Arrows Racing).
Staab finished eighth with Adrian Kunzle (MLT) and Doyle/Harrison (WTR Andretti) behind for an all-AM Top 10.
In the LAMBORGHINI CUP, there was also no shortage of action: Shota Abkhazava threw away a comfortable win, after the Georgian had stabilized in the top 10, picking up a 30 second penalty for overtaking under the Safety Car and then another 5 seconds for colliding with a rival.
The ART-Line driver slipped back and the win went to Harmsen (GT3 Poland), 11th overall at the finish line, with second place for Jonathan Hirshberg (Forte Racing) and third place for Alfredo Hernandez Ortega (BDR Grupo Prom).
For Biglieri/Matic, only the crumbs remained after the final spin, while Luciano and Donovan Privitelio (Rexal Villorba Corse) and the Zairel Oh brothers (HZO Fortis Racing) also finished in the top 5 of the category.
