You had to wait for it quite a bit, but I finally found the time to upload some of my shots from the 6h of Spa and of course the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Find them here:
You can also find them in the “Photo’s” section above!
You can find my best pics here or browse to it via the “Events” section!
Full size images will soon be up on my Flickr-page.
Stay up-to-date by following me on Instagram and/or Facebook!
Below is a little sneak peek!
You can find my best pics here or browse to it via the “Events” section!
Full size images will soon be up on my Flickr-page.
Stay up-to-date by following me on Instagram and/or Facebook!
Below is a little sneak peek!
This article was written for and published by Prescott Motorsport
Where a safety car stood in the way of a good result in the DTM race on Saturday, nothing could stop the reigning DTM-champion René Rast in his Audi RS5 from taking the chequered flag in the second DTM race on Sunday. He grabbed not only his first victory of the season, but also Audi’s first win of the year.
Sunday qualifying led us to believe that the second race of the weekend could play out the same way as the first. Gary Paffett managed to score his second Pole of the weekend and with an even greater gap: he was 0.4 seconds clear of the rest of the field. However, behind him he was now not backed by a couple of his Mercedes-teammates; Philipp Eng had put his BMW M4 on first row, before René Rast in his Audi RS5.
Paffett managed to bank on his Pole Position, taking the lead after the start. Philipp Eng in his BMW M4 didn’t manage to pass Paffett in Tarzan Corner and followed closely in P2 with Rast on his tail.
Rast, possibly strengthened by the believe that his race pace could certainly match that off Paffett and knowing overtaking is difficult at the Zandvoort track, went for a very aggressive strategy. Opposite to race 1, he now tried the ‘undercut’ and made his pitstop as early as lap 5. Being able to run with a clear track ahead of him and on new tires, he managed to come out just in front of Paffett when he made his stop in lap 13.
A safety car period followed after a spin of Canadian Bruno Spengler in Tarzan Corner, who got pushed off by Jamie Green. The field was again close together. Where it was thought that Gary Paffett and brand-colleague Paul DiResta, now in 3rd, might be able to take the fight to the Audi RS5 in front with their newer tires, Rast proved he was in total control of the race and drove to victory.
Championship leader Paffett added another 21 points to his total again, now leading the championship with 148 points, 27 more Paul Di Resta who came in third with 121 points. Winner Rast more than doubled his points balance to 49 and is now 9th in the championship.
After a great performance on Saturday, the race on Sunday was one to quickly forget for local hero Robin Frijns. Already in free practice his Audi suffered from electrical issues, which also kept him from doing more than one run in qualifying. As a result he didn’t managed to leave the last row on the grid: an 18th position was his share. In the race the electrical issue forced him to retire in lap 10.
A slightly better performance than yesterday for BMW. After Philipp Eng put his car on the first row in qualifying, he was long in a place where he could challenge for a podium finish. In the end he was just beaten by Di Resta. Augusto Farfus followed closely in 5th to secure a second top 10 finish for the Bavarian brand.
This article was written for and published by Prescott Motorsport.
Where the English football team couldn’t bring sportive success, it had to come from somewhere else for the English. And it did: Gary Paffett won the first race through the Dutch Dunes in Zandvoort in a race that was dominated by Mercedes. The first non-Mercedes was found on 5th place, which ‘lokalmatador’ Robin Frijns secured in his Audi RS5.
Paffett lay the foundation for his 23rd career win (in 174 races) already in quali where he snatched Pole Position before Pascal Wehrlein by 6 hundreds of a second. Wehrlein however was not amused, saying Paffett blocked him in his fast lap.
In the opening stages of the race, where Paffett took the lead from the start before Wehrlein, DiResta and Auer, pressure mostly came from his teammates. However, the hardest fight this race remarkably was put up by Audi driver, and reigning champion, René Rast, who was only ninth on the grid. Trying to make his pitstop as late as possible, the Audi-driver showed incredible pace with no traffic ahead as all the others made their pitstop quite early.
Building a considerable gap, Rast was working towards a lead that could’ve granted him at least a very good finish, maybe even his first win of the season. But all was lost when team-colleague Nico Müller buried the nose of his RS5 deep in the tire barrier of the quick second turn, causing a safety car period. Rast still had to make his pitstop while the Mercedes quartet behind him, and the rest of the field, already did. After his pitstop, Rast rejoined in last position.
This left Paffett on top of the field again with only a short distance to go. He took the well-deserved win with a 1.4 second lead over Scotsman Paul DiResta. Austrian Lucas Auer took the final podium spot.
Paffett, already the leader in the championship, extended his lead by scoring 28 points today (in DTM, 3 points are awarded for Pole Position) to a total of 127. DiResta comes second with 106.
Local hero Robin Frijns drove a strong race starting from 7th and finishing 5th . After a difficult start of the season, the rookie Frijns, having considerable mileage under his belt on the Dutch track, was the best Audi and best non-Mercedes in the race.
BMW had a bad day at Zandvoort: best placed Bavarian car was the bright yellow M4 of Timo Glock in 6th place. He was followed by three of his team-colleagues: Wittmann, Farfus and Eriksson completing the top 10. The BMWs did not play a role in the fight for the top spots.
I find it pretty hard to find some good wallpapers for my 21:9 screen… So, I decided to share mine with you! Feel free to download!
I’m currently very busy editing the shots from last weekends 24 Heures du Mans. Here’s a small preview already!
Note that this time, unfortunately, everything was shot from public areas!
The inaugural event of the 2018/2019 WEC Superseason in the Belgian Ardennes didn’t go unnoticed on many levels… Huge shunts, huge names and great fights characterized the race, although the fight for the win never really put you on the edge of your seat.
LMP1
The LMP1 category was at least as exciting besides the track than on it. It all started with the first laps of F1 superstar Fernando Alonso in the Toyota LMP1. Next, the first shocker of the weekend was that the CEFC TRSM Ginetta team (the former Manor Racing squad) pulled his two brand new Ginetta G60s from the race after sponsor TRSs funds didn’t arrive on time.
In Friday’s qualifying there was the terrible crash of Pietro Fittipaldi in Raidillon, from which he suffered two broken legs and other injuries. Luckily, specialists expect he will fully recover. The no. 7 Toyota with Mike Conway behind the wheel, took pole before the no. 8 sistercar. However, after the session the no. 7 was penalised due to an incorrect declaration of the fuel flow meter (rumours where that Toyota listed all their fuel flow meters on the same serial number). So, the no. 8 Alonso, Buémi and Nakajima at the wheel could start the race from pole, the no. 7 had to start from pit lane.
Although it could be more or less predicted, the race was slightly disappointing. The Toyota no. 8 took off right after the start, as the no. 7 had to start a lap down only followed by the privateer entries from Rebellion, SMP and ByKolles (in that order). There was no way however they could keep up with the Hybrids. Mid-race an interesting fight between the two Rebellions and the no. 17 SMP racing car developed that lasted several laps. The skirmish was then brutally ended by an incredible crash of the SMP car with by then Isaakyan at the wheel (check the movie here). At the end of the race the no. 7 Toyota had caught up with Alonso in the no. 8 car, but he controlled the race until the end to take the victory.
Post-race, the 3rd placed Rebellion no. 1 car of André Lotterer, Bruno Senna and Neel Jani got disqualified because of the skid-block under the car being to worn down (18.8mm instead of the allowed 20mm). The no. 3 Rebellion inherited the 3rd place.
LMP2
In the first stages of the race, Giedo van der Garde in the no. 29 Racing Team Nederland quickly ploughed through the field from his 7th starting position to take the lead in LMP2. Unfortunately, electrical issues led to an early and lengthy pitstop that costed the car too much time to score a good result. The race was then controlled by the no. 26 G-Drive racing Oreca 07, driven by Roman Rusinov, Andrea Pizzitola and Jean Eric Vergne. Their victory never really was in danger, in the end they had a 20 second gap to the no. 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca. The 3rd placed no. 36 Alpine entry was over 55 seconds behind the winner.
GT Pro
Most interesting fight of the race was between the Porsches and by then lone Ford GT after a huge crash of Harry Tincknell at Raidillon. The no. 66 with Pla at the wheel managed to undo the advantage taken by Lietz in the no. 92 Porsche at the last round of pit stops. He was able to get a better run out of La Source heading for Eau Rouge and use the acceleration of the Ford to pass Lietz. He was then also passed by the sister car driven by Christensen at that moment, and in the second-to-last lap even fell of the podium, being past by the no. 71 Ferrari of Sam Bird and Davide Rigon.
New cars Aston Martin and BMW couldn’t fight for the podium spots yet, BMW having the upper hand over the Brits finishing 5th, the Astons coming in on place 6 and 7.
GT Am
In GT Am the year-old Aston Martin Vantage showed great race-pace. Both the factory entry and the TF Sport car battled for victory until the last lap, with an advantage of more than a lap on the 3rd placed Clearwater Ferrari 488 which ran clear of technical issues all race long. It was AMR’s Pedro Lamy who managed to stay in front of TF Sport’s Euan Hankey in the last lap, only 0.221s between them at race-end.
Where during the Prologue at Le Castellet it was feared that the Porsches had somewhat of an advantage, being able to even do battle with the GT Pro cars, this was not the case in Spa. Running into several problems, none of the entries from Stuttgart could challenge the win after the first stages of the race.
Rick Kiewiet Photography 