Emil Frey leads with both cars at Zandvoort and its own drivers have swapped the lead
Green passed the McLaren at the start and the pole sitter at the restart, a safety car followed a crash at the Hugenholtzbocht, and Weerts and van der Linde are up to twentieth
Emil Frey Racing leads the second GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup race at Zandvoort with both of its cars, and its own two drivers have already swapped the lead. Ben Green hunted Konsta Lappalainen down, sat two tenths behind him, and took him at the restart.
Lappalainen started from pole in the number 14 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo and led until that restart. Green, third on the grid in the number 69, has been the sharpest driver on the circuit since the lights went out.
Green was quickest off the line and took the McLaren on the inside
Green got away better than anyone on the front two rows and went straight after Louis Prette, who had lined up second in the Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo. He made the move stick on the inside, and the Garage 59 car dropped to third.
That McLaren is the car that won Race 1 on Saturday and has been at the front of every session this weekend. Losing a place in the first corners is the first time all weekend it has gone backwards.
Haase slid at the Hugenholtzbocht and the safety car lasted minutes
The race was barely under way when Christopher Haase slid at the Hugenholtzbocht in the number 84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II and made contact with another car. Haase had started eighth. The safety car came out immediately.
It did not stay out long. The call of “safety car in this lap” came within a few minutes, which suggests there was little left on the circuit to clear. We do not yet know which car Haase hit, or whether either of them is still running.
It is the second day running that the Hugenholtzbocht has decided something here. On Saturday the number 31 stopped at that corner and the number 71 lost control at the same place.
Green took the lead at the restart
At the restart the order at the front was unchanged: Lappalainen, Green, Prette, and the AF Corse Ferrari of Tommaso Mosca and Matias Zagazeta fourth. Three Ferraris in the top four, and two Gold Cup cars in third and fourth in a field with fifteen Pro entries.
Green closed to two tenths and then made it count. When the field was released after the full course yellow he went straight past Lappalainen and into the lead. That is two cars passed in one race for the driver who started third, and both moves were made on the road rather than in the pits.
Emil Frey has not won anything this weekend and now has its two drivers racing each other for it. The race has a single mandatory stop with a driver change, and on a circuit where overtaking is hard the stop may yet reorder them again.
Lulham is on the grass chasing the last Pro point
Chris Lulham lost places at the start in the number 3 Mercedes-AMG of Verstappen Racing, fell to thirteenth, and has already climbed back to eleventh from a fifteenth-place grid slot. He is now on the back of Maro Engel in the number 48 Winward Mercedes-AMG and running wide onto the grass trying to find a way past.
That fight matters more than its position suggests. The number 48 is currently tenth in the Pro Cup, and tenth is the last place that scores, worth half a point. Two Mercedes-AMGs are arguing over the final Pro point, and Lulham is taking real risk to get it.
He is also driving the car that qualified fifteenth and twenty-seventh across the two sessions this weekend. Whatever is wrong with that Mercedes on a single lap, it is not wrong in a race.
Seven places, then nothing
Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde started twenty-seventh after a five-place penalty carried over from Magny-Cours. Van der Linde gained seven places in the opening laps and has been stuck in twentieth since.
Some of that early gain may be other people’s trouble rather than overtaking, and we will not know until the retirements are confirmed. Either way Weerts and van der Linde need to finish ahead of the number 48 to score anything in the Pro Cup, and while they have stopped moving forward, Lulham has been coming the other way. Every Pro car that climbs pushes that last points place further out of reach.
The 89 is in the gravel and the race is under full course yellow
The Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R has gone off and is stuck in the gravel, bringing out a full course yellow. The car is shared by Flynt Schuring and Nicolas Baert, the second Schuring on this grid, and it started thirty-second. The official grid sheet lists Baert as the starting driver. We do not yet know who was at the wheel.
A full course yellow freezes the order and the clock keeps running, which is the last thing the number 32 needed. Ten minutes of the hour have already gone.
The race runs to just after 15:15
One hour, one mandatory pit stop, and the driver who did not start each car takes the second stint. The pit window has not opened yet. When it does, it will decide the lead between the two Emil Frey cars and it is the only realistic route left for the number 32. We are following it on the RNT live blog.
