After a very successful debut in the International GT Open Series four weeks ago in Portimão, Portugal, the Kirchberg-based GT3 team Eastalent Racing travelled last weekend (26 to 28 May) to Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps for the second round of the championship. It turned out that the Austrians have a special touch for the Ardennes roller coaster. As drivers Simon Reicher and Christopher Haase confirmed, the Audi R8 LMS evo II was particularly well-suited to the 7.004-kilometre circuit.

The special feature of this weekend was the Endurance mode. This means that both drivers take part in qualifying, their best lap times are added together and then averaged. The result determines the starting grid for the Sunday race, which lasts over two hours, 20 minutes, and one lap. Three mandatory pit stops must be completed, meaning each driver has to get behind the wheel twice for 35 minutes.

The Eastalent drivers were self-critical despite securing pole position and a second-place finish in the race. Simon Reicher expressed both self-criticism and confidence: “I can’t really be happy about that, because we had an extremely difficult race. Above all, we were lucky that our tyres held up. Nevertheless, the second place and the points for the championship are great. All in all, we can give ourselves a pat on the back for the race. We did well. Now, however, we need to see how we can optimise performance at the Hungaroring and at Paul Ricard. We’ll need to work things out over the next few weeks and complete a tight testing programme.”

On the tyre issue, the Kirchberg native explained: “I can’t say from the outside whether the other participants also had problems with their tyres. But I know full well that the tyres are our weak point. We have to work on that.”

Audi works driver Christopher Haase summed up the weekend as follows: “Looking from the outside, we can be very satisfied with the weekend. Pole position and second place in a multi-driver race are a strong performance for all of us. As a driver, I was very happy with qualifying. The tyre issue occupied us more than we had expected. There’s still a bit of work ahead of us. Under these circumstances, we made the best of the weekend.”

Text: www.kartpress.de / Michael Schulz
Photos: www.kartnet.de / Michael Schulz

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