Gtwc Europe, the Team Rowe BMW Wins Season Opener at Paul Ricard

Lamborghini and Mercedes also in the GT3 top three

Maserati secures first GT2 win at the French circuit

Braga: “We witnessed closely contested races which entertained the crowd. The P Zero performance was excellent, confirming its reliability.”

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe 2024 season got off to the best possible start, with an action-packed weekend which drew a large crowd to the paddock and grandstands of the Paul Ricard Circuit at Le Castellet. Victory in the main 85 lap race of the French round of the Fanatec GTWC Europe series went to Rowe Racing’s BMW M4 GT3, driven by Augusto Farfus, Dan Harper and Max Hesse, who got the better of the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 entered by the Iron Lynx team, crewed by Andrea Caldarelli, Matteo Cairoli and Mirko Bortolotti, which secured pole position in the morning in a time of 1:52.775. Third was the M-AMG Team Get Speed’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, in the hands of Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Jules Gounon. The winner also set the fastest race lap in a time of 1:54.918. Worth noting that eight of the nine manufacturer teams entered were represented in the top ten.

PIRELLI QUOTE

Matteo Braga, Circuit Activity Manager: “The first event of the year confirmed how the GT Series continue to progress in terms of the show they put on as well as the quality of the teams and drivers, who provided some very spectacular racing. In particular, in GT3, we witnessed a very close and evenly matched race. No one car really dominated and several seemed capable of winning, setting impressive lap times. Futhermore, there were some incredible climbs up the order, such as the 163 car that went from 46^th place to 11^th. The P Zero DHF also did an excellent job, its performance and consistency is now beyond question, even on particularly demanding tracks like this one. Now we head to Brands Hatch for the opening round of this season’s Sprint Cup, which looks like being equally challenging.”

THE OTHER RACES THIS WEEKEND

Here are the results of the other categories supported by Pirelli.

Maserati won Race 1 of the GT2 European Series, thus clinching an historic maiden victory at Paul Ricard with LP Racing’s Carlo Tamburini and Leonardo Gorini. First past the flag in Race 2 was the KTM X-Bow of Matej Homola e Jan Krabec (RTR Project).

In the GT4 European Series, the Matmut Evolution team won Race 1 with the Toyota GR Supra GT4 of Enzo Joulie, Etienne Cheli, while victory in Race 2 went to Pro Sport Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 driven by Hugo Sasse and Rafael Rennhofer.