The Hannover-based Attempto Racing team kicked off its Blancpain GT Series campaign in Monza, Italy, at the weekend. Sunday featured a three-hour race in the Endurance Cup. Attempto had three vehicles on the starting grid: The number 101 metallic blue Lamborghini Huracán (Fabio Babini/I, Daniel Zampieri/I, Patric Niederhauser/CH) finished 19th out of 57 cars after 95 laps.
In the number 100 Lamborghini Huracán, Max van Splunteren (NL), Louis Machiels (B) and Jeroen Mul (NL) came home eighth in the Pro-Am Cup (23rd overall). The Porsche 911 GT3 R (Clément Mateu/F, Jürgen Häring/D, Nicolas Armindo/F) claimed a hard-earned eleventh place (29th overall) in the same class. “The Blancpain Series is the most competitive GT race series in the world this year. 31 cars finished within one second of each other in qualifying! I am not really pleased with our performance. However, we will work hard to get back up there in the coming races,” was the summary of Arkin Aka, Managing Director of Attempto, at the end of the race weekend.
Sunday’s eventful endurance race proved to be something of an emotional roller-coaster for the team from Lower Saxony. Impressive gains on the track were wiped out by a drive-through penalty. The large number of vehicles on the circuit led to tight door-to-door duels, which ended badly for some. Safety car phases and yellow flags made it difficult to get into a good race rhythm. Groups of cars repeatedly bunched together on the famous 5.793-kilometre track north-east of Milan, which has been hosting motor racing events since 1922.
The weekend’s work on the high-speed circuit in Monza proved to be a large-scale operation for the Attempto Racing team. In addition to three cars, with nine drivers, in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, the team also entered three vehicles and four drivers in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo. The European one-make cup featured German drivers Tim Müller (start number 30), Jürgen Krebs (start number 40) and Dirg Parhofer (D)/Paul van Splunteren (NL) at the wheel of the 620-hp Lamborghinis.
Patric Niederhauser, #101: “We made a bit of a mess of qualifying and started the race from 54th position. However, we then launched a pretty crazy fightback and climbed as far as 21st. Unfortunately, we had a coming-together with a Ferrari. All in all, it was good fun but we can still work on getting some more speed out of the car.”
Max van Splunteren, #100: “We were able to settle on a good set-up during the first sessions on Saturday. Only qualifying down in 43rd was then a bit of a surprise for us. All our times were very close together. I was able to make some progress during my stint, reaching 25th place. Eighth place in the Pro-Am class is an OK result.”
Jürgen Häring, #77: “We had problems with the brakes all weekend. Eleventh place in our class reflects an OK result in our race, but we have plenty of room for improvement in the future.”
Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup Babini/Zampieri/Niederhauser: 19th place Van Splunteren/Machiels/Mul: 8th place Pro-Am Cup, 23rd place overall Mateu/Häring/Armindo: 11th place Pro-Am Cup, 29th place overall Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo Europe Müller: Saturday 24th place, Sunday DNF Krebs: Saturday 28th place, Sunday 24th place Parhofer/van Splunteren: Saturday 33rd place, Sunday 34th place Press release Attempto Racing]]>
