As promised, the third stage of the Russian Endurance Challenge was held under very interesting and almost extreme conditions for riders. The start was won by the 48-strong crew of the Yadro Motorsport team (pilots Sergey Stolyarov, Rinat Salikhov), another Mercedes No. 13 (Capital RT team, pilots Denis Remenyako, Mikhail Aleshin) began to pursue it, but the main events played out halfway through the race.
Then in the “absolute” the leader was the crew No. 23 on the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (Alexey Dudukalo, Evgeny Rumyantsev, Sergey Titorenko, Spora GT team), but after entering the pits, Evgeny Rumyantsev, who started on cold tires, which had just replaced Alexey Dudukalo, did not keep the car on the track, was flooded with heavy rain again – hit the guardrail and drove away.
And the sports prototype No. 26 of the G-Drive Racing team (pilots Roman Rusinov, Sergey Afanasiev) after a pit stop slipped the left rear wheel – at the very beginning of the straight, from which it is impossible to return to the three wheel pits… The car returned to the pits on a tow truck, but the battle for leadership was over. The guys just needed to score major points in their CN Sport Prototype class, which they did.
The main intrigue is which of the two Mercedes – No. 13 or No. 48 – will rise to the first step of the podium in the general classification? After three hours of racing, the gap between them was… just 50 seconds! As a result, crew No. 13 (Capital RT team, pilots Denis Remenyako, Mikhail Aleshin) tactically defeated the rivals and later made pit stops. As a result – victory in the “absolute” and GT Pro standings.
Skillful tactics proved to be the key to victory in the CN 1.6 sports prototype class – at the finish, these two teams were 1 minute 49.624 seconds apart, less than a circle! “Short cut” No. 21 of the Balchug Racing Team (Mikhail Loboda and Kirill Kirakozov) was ahead of the seemingly faster crew No. 9 of the Zub&Ko team (Vitaly Zubenko, Evgeny Kulikov, Konstantin Zakharevsky).
In the GT Light class, the winner was crew No. 53 with Mazda 3 (Mazda Karting Academy team, pilots Valery Smirnov, Arina Sukhanova). And the third place, paradoxically with a draw, was taken by another Mazda, Vasily Vladykin (start number 96, Otets and Son team): thanks to the reserve created earlier, he was able to cling to the podium, despite an unfortunate departure in the final laps. .. The final of REC-2022 will take place from October 22 to 23 in Sochi.
- Well, here’s a completely different “sport”: AVTOVAZ has patented a sport button.
- “Behind the Wheel” can be seen on RuTube.
Air temperature +8° and drizzle, which intensified just before the start of the endurance race Moscow Raceway REC 4h…
Source: Z R
