Blancpain GT Endurance – David wins, takes championship lead

Having just come off of two Blancpain Sprint Series wins in a row, South African GT3 race star David Perel was hoping to carry some of that momentum into the past weekend’s Paul Ricard Blancpain Endurance Series 6 Hour as he headed to France in search of his first Endurance win. Perel’s performance far exceeded expectations straight out the gate – he led the first free practice session overall and was second in the next practice session against 60 cars and 180 drivers.

“We had a good feeling about the weekend but did not expect to be at the sharp end of the entire Blancpain field,” David explained. “Our aim was to lead our class but we went quite some way beyond that!” Qualifying did not however go according to plan, when David made a small mistake on his best lap to cost him the AM class pole position. “After our performance in practice I was hoping for better,” Perel admitted, “But we will make up for it in the race.”

Each of the three co-drivers are required to race for two hours in a six hour race and given David’s form, the team opted to put him in the car for the final two-hour stint in an effort in to catch the AM class leaders. Capetonian Perel took the wheel, with his #888 Ferrari Kessel Racing 488 GT3 lying second in class and a lap behind the leaders after four hours and David was quickly down to work, eating into the lead at 3 seconds to lap soon unlap the Ferrari.

“I never left a stone unturned through my two-hour stint — I put it all on the line, even catching and passing some of the factory drivers in the field, it was a huge effort,” David explained of his fight to cut his deficit down to the leading down BMW down to just 15 seconds with ten minutes of the race left to run. But a technical infringement led to David serving a drive-through penalty to potentially cost the Ferrari the race win.

However, by the time that Perel had taken the chequered flag in second place, it became apparent that the leading BMW had in fact been guilty of a more severe infringement, having skipped one of its five required pit stops to hand Perel and his Kessel Ferrari co-drivers Marco Zanuttini and Jacques Duyver an unlikely AM win.

It was David’s first Blancpain Endurance Series win and moved him in the lead of all three Blancpain GT AM Championships. “My Kessel Ferrari was perfect and my race pace was a dream.” David concluded. “I am so happy to have finally won a race in the Blancpain Endurance Series— this is a massive, massive achievement for me and I can only say a huge thank you to my team and my co-drivers!”

David’s next race for is his biggest of the season — the famous Spa 24 Hour in Belgium over the weekend of 29-30 July.