Herberth Motorsport continues to lead as changeable conditions provoke a sensational opening half

Following its victory last time out at the Red Bull Ring, Herberth Motorsport has once again stolen a march over its nearest rivals as the 2017 Hankook 24H CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD reached the halfway point. It had been far from an easy to climb to the top spot during the opening 12 hours, however.

The 24H SERIES powered by Hankook had enjoyed Provence’s traditionally glorious sunshine during the weekend’s opening practice and qualifying sessions, allowing the Scuderia Praha Ferrari 488 GT3 to cement pole position. Just two hours before the race though, the stunningly azure skies above Le Castellet had been replaced with heavy rain and a dense bank of fog that hung almost ominously over Circuit Paul Ricard. With visibility close to zero, Creventic had no choice but to start the fourth round of the 24H SERIES under Code 60 conditions, a first for the endurance series.

If race fans felt aggrieved by this decision though, the thrilling early action more than made up for it.

Having shown phenomenal pace on a dry track during the build-up, the pole sitting #11 Ferrari 488 GT3 – with Matteo Malucelli behind the wheel – proved no match for the #31 ROFGO Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 that lined up alongside it on the front row, Stuart Hall immediately leaping ahead once the green flag was flown and disappearing up the sodden road by more than two seconds per lap. With barely 30 minutes of the 2017 Hankook 24H CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD complete, ROFGO Racing – Hall / Roald Goethe / Jamie Campbell-Walter / Nicolas Minassian) already held a near-20 second lead while Scuderia Prada was too busy fending off both the #32 Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS (Adrian Amstutz / Patrick Kujala / Martin Kodric / Connor de Phillippi) and the #911 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 991 GT3 R (Daniel Allemann / Ralf Bohn / Alfred and Robert Renauer) to retaliate.

Momentum would soon swing back towards the Italian stallion however as the rain dissipated. Unable to sustain his earlier speed, Hall began to inch back into the grip of the Ferrari, the 488 GT3 proving far kinder to its wet-weather tyres than its Mercedes rival. By lap 29, Malucelli had brought the yawning chasm between them back down to less than a second, though the rapidly drying conditions meant the Scuderia Praha Ferrari – which had worked its way back into contention after a similarly slow start two rounds earlier to win the Hankook 12H MUGELLO – couldn’t take advantage. As most of the grid flooded (ironically) to pit-road to swap their rapidly deteriorating wet weather rubber for slicks, the leaders would lose up to seven seconds per lap as they waited for a gap at the refueling station.

Enter Herberth Motorsport.
Despite running a dry-weather setup on wet tyres, the 24H DUBAI and 12H RED BULL RING victors chose to gamble on an earlier pit stop, a decision that erased a near 25-second gap to the leaders and vaulted the German outfit to the head of the field. Car Collection Motorsport’s #32 Audi – which had been running 3rd – would do likewise to slot in close behind.

Having finally abandoned their ruined wet weather tyres, Scuderia Praha – who would lose even more time later on after tangling with backmarkers – and ROFGO Racing would ultimately drop to 3rd and 4th respectively. Sadly the #31 Mercedes’ run – including a storming drive by Jamie Campbell-Walter in his first race start for a full year – would grind to a halt along just five laps into Nicolas Minassian’s stint, a lose wheel and front left suspension damage dropping the AMG GT3 well down the order as the fourth hour rolled by. Consistent running through the night stages meant the British squad was back into the top ten at half-distance, despite being 20 laps in arrears to the leaders.

A6-Pro Top 3
1. Herberth Motorsport #911 (Porsche)
2. Car Collection Motorsport #32 (Audi)
3. Scuderia Praha #11 (Ferrari)

As the only 991-category entry, it’s been a lonely albeit largely uneventful run for the #85 PROsport Performance Porsche 991 Cup (Charles Putman / Charles Espenlaub / Joe Foster / Andy Pilgrim) in 7th place overall as the team sets its eyes on championship glory. Hofor-Racing meanwhile (Michael and Chantal Kroll / Roland Eggimann / Kenneth Heyer / Christiaan Frankenhout) took the early advantage in A6-Am, the reigning series champions no doubt keen to cement its third class victory in four rounds and move ahead of PROsport Performance in the standings, with whom they are currently tied on points. Rain wasn’t the only challenge for Hofor-Racing in the early going though.

Contact came inside the first 30 minutes with the #33 Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS when Rahel Frey – at the wheel of the Audi – lost grip on the exit of turn eight, the “360 kiss”, as Hofor-Racing pilot Christiaan Frankenhout called it, tipping the Mercedes off-track and dangerously close to the guardrails, though the AMG GT3 was able to rejoin. It would not be the end of the #1 GT car’s misfortune, however. A heavy vibration, picked up during the collision, meant the AMG GT3 was now unstable under braking, a new set of discs failing to solve the problem. Like father like daughter, Chantal Kroll would later suffer contact – bizarrely at the same corner her father Michael had come a cropper during free practice – a few hours later, causing the #1 to drop out of the A6-Am lead to repair a busted front left wheel. At the halfway point though, Hofor-Racing once again heads the category ahead of the #34 Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS (Johannes Dr. Kirchhoff / Gustav and Max Edelhoff / Elmar Grimm / Ingo Vogler).

Contact with the reigning champions though was just the start of a difficult weekend for the sister #33 R8 LMS of Dirg and Dmitri Parhofer, Rémi Terrail, Toni Forné and Rahel Frey. Already penalised 30 seconds for the ‘avoidable contact’ with the #1 Mercedes, Frey would come under fire again after her second collision, miscommunication under braking for the second chicane causing the Audi to tip the then-2nd placed Scuderia Praha Ferrari off the circuit and down into 5th place. Yet more damage was picked up on the front left suspension and wheel housing when Dmitri Parhofer later out-braked himself heavily into turn eight, the German also making heavy contact with the tyre barriers as dusk began to fall, necessitating a visit to the medical centre. Fortunately all reports indicate that Parhofer is okay.

Meanwhile, the UAE’s sole representatives at Circuit Paul Ricard – GP Extreme – were ‘enjoying’ a race of fluctuating fortunes, the A6-Pro-entered #28 entry of Anthony Beltoise, Axcil Jefferies, Pierre Brice Mena and Jean-Pierre Valentini slowing dramatically during the opening Code 60 laps with suspected electrical issues, caused by the unusually heavy rainfall. Similarly the A6-Am #27 Renaultsport R.S.01 (Frederic Fatien / Jordan Grogor / Tiziano Carugati / Nicky Pastorelli / Bassam Kronfli) was nursing both understeer and oversteer issues courtesy of a broken track control arm during Tiziano Carugati’s opening stint, the ‘slight incident on-track’ costing the GP Extreme machine almost 30 minutes on pit-road. The sister #28 entry’s overall 5th position however does mean that five different manufacturers – Porsche, Mercedes-AMG, Ferrari, Audi, Renaultsport – are now represented in the top five at the 2017 Hankook 24H CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD.

A6-Am Top 3
1. Hofor-Racing #1 (Mercedes-AMG)
2. Car Collection Motorsport #34 (Audi)
3. GP Extreme #27 (Renaultsport)

991 Top…, er 1
1. PROsport Performance #85 (Porsche)

Fans of SP2 suffered a shock when long-time class leaders APO Sport dropped well down the order shortly after nightfall. The #80 Porsche 991 Cup of Alex Osborne, James May (not that one) and Paul May had held the category lead since the green flag dropped, but contact with the tyres barriers and a lengthy stop in the garage mean APO Sport have now dropped to the tail of the class, almost 150 laps behind new leaders IDEC SPORT RACING, whose #75 Porsche 991 Cup (David Abramczyk / Stephane Adler / Romain Vozniak / Franck Leherpeur / Michael Blanchemain) now picks up the baton just over a minute ahead of fellow Porsche runners Pierre-Yves Paque, Jesus Diez and Grégory Paisse in the #78 Speed Lover entry. Having put a difficult opening weekend in the 24H TOURIN CAR ENDURANCE SERIES presented by Hankook behind them at Silverstone, DUWO Racing are enjoying a solid run in CUP1, the #235 DUWO Racing BMW M235i Racing Cup (Jean-Marie Dumont / Alexander W. Wetzlich / Nicolas Schmit / Adrian Watt / Chris Wilson) all but assured the class victory as the category’s only entry.

The fight for TCR victory meanwhile remains tight, despite the official retirement of early leaders Insightracing Denmark. The #124 Honda Civic TCR (Martin Jensen / Marcus Påverud / Joakim Frid / Frederik Schandorff) had been snapping at the exhaust pipes of Modena Motorsports during the early stages, though differing pit strategies meant that the #216 Seat Leon TCR (Wayne and John Shen / Francis Tjia / Benny Simonsen) had been running in tighter contention – and repeatedly swapping the leader with – the #333 Car Collection Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS of Monika Parhofer, Dirk Vorländer, Christian Kranenberg, JM Littman and Rik Breukers. Race-long handling issues – including some spectacular four-wheel drifts from Breukers in the opening wet conditions – means the #333 though has now dropped almost 10 laps off the class leaders.

SP2 Top 3

1. IDEC SPORT RACING #75 (Porsche)
2. Speed Lover #78 (Porsche)
3. Porsche Lorient Racing #65 (Porsche)

CUP1 Top…, er 1
1. DUWO Racing #235 (BMW)

TCR Top 3
1. Modena Motorsports #216 (SEAT)
2. Cadspeed Racing with Atech #108 (SEAT)
3. Car Collection Motorsport #333 (Audi)

Attrition at Paul Ricard would strike the SP3-GT4 class hardest though, the #111 track-club Lotus Evora GT4 (Marcus Jewell / Simon Atkinson / Adam Knight / Stuart Ratcliff) being the first to crawl to a halt on-track with a loose throttle. As 12 hours went into the books, the #111 was once again on pit-road – followed into its garage by a trail of oil – having once again worked its way back to the front, though the Lotus has yet to re-emerge.

Early class leaders FACH AUTO TECH – which had eked out a comfortable 9 lap lead – would also grind to a halt on the outside of turn 13, an engine management issue sending the vehicle’s electronics into disarray, leading to a lengthy trip for the #240 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in the garage. The #231 Optimum Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 meanwhile (Adrian Barwick / Dan O’Brien / Julio Martini / Philippe Salini) remains the race’s most dramatic retirement thus far, Adrian Barwick lucky to escape an oil fire that quickly engulfed the entire drivers’ side quarter. “Just a few singed leg hairs” showed the Englishman hadn’t lost his sense of humour in the confusion.

SP3-GT4 Top 3
1. track-club #111 (Lotus)
2. FACH AUTO TECH #240 (Porsche)
3. Optimum Motorsport #231 (Ginetta)