Razoon Porsche clinched victory in the inaugural Gedlich Racing six-hour race in Portimao, with Simon Birch and Thomas Andersen seeing off a competitive field in their 992 GT 3.
The first-ever six-hour race organised by Gedlich featured a 35-minute minimum combined pitstop time in the first five hours and 30 minutes across at least five pitstops.
After several lead changes during the early pitstop cycles, the Landgraf Mercedes duo of Jorg Viebahn and Tom Kalender would match Birch and Andersen, but the gap remained at roughly a minute throughout the race.
This split was established in the second hour, after Landgraf’s Viebahn remained in the car for longer than Andersen, and Birch took full advantage in the Razoon Porsche.
Andersen and Birch would ultimately win by one minute and 23 seconds, after the Landgraf Mercedes received 20 seconds worth of track limits penalties. Viebahn and Kalender finished second, while the AKM Motorsport Mercedes entry of Marco Antonelli, Raffaele Giammaria and Aaron Farhadi rounded out the overall podium, beating the Greystone GT McLaren of Oliver Webb, Ed Pead and Andrey Borodin due to greater consistency.
In the Cup 2 class for Porsche 992 Cup cars, the A-Workx team controlled much of the race, courtesy of particularly rapid stints from Nico Menzel and faultless running from Rodriguez Menzl. The Mtech Competition team from Sweden put in a good effort, with particular heroics from Gustav Soderberg Krogh during his stints.
A-Workx ultimately won the class, taking fifth overall and finishing a lap clear of the Mtech car. Steiner Racing rounded out the Cup 2 podium.
Lionspeed GP were victorious in the GT4 category, despite starting the race with a brief visit to the pits. The line-up of Damian Freda, Steven Berndtson and Patrick Kolb were only 35 seconds clear of the NM Racing Team Mercedes at the end, but this was extended by 20 seconds after late track limits penalties accrued by NM’s Ian Loggie.
The Spanish team had the strongest pace in the GT4 class, but a slew of bad luck befell the AMG GT4. This included a shock absorber failure in the first hour and a puncture in hour four.
Monteiros Competicoes finished 10th overall and won the TCX class.
Gedlich Racing will run a second six-hour contest at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on 14-16 March.
