The excellent performance shown on track last weekend with FFF Racing Team’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo during the Spa 24 Hours were not enough for Michele Beretta to win the Silver Cup. Together with team-mates Giacomo Altoé, Taylor Proto and Diego Menchaca had shown a good pace already in qualifying. The start of the race, under the rain, with Michele at the wheel, had been excellent, with the italian able to recover positions bringing up the Lamborghini Huracan in second class position; a trend confirmed at nightfall even from Altoé who managed to turn on the times of the best before a pedal problem forced the team to a long stop (thirteen laps lost).
Once back in the race, they were able to keep pace with the leaders until late in the night when, under heavy raing, Diego Menchaca lost the control crashing into Fagnes barriers and ending the race earlier.
Michele Beretta: “What a shame, we come back home without any point. We had a very competitive car and an excellent race pace. In the early stages of the race we were fast and I managed to overtake and break the sister car of Barwell Motorsport which got the win later on. Then the problem on throttle where we lost 13 laps, then the crash that forced us to retire the car. Once again we have shown that we can stay with the best and we have accumulated further experience in very difficult conditions that will surely be useful in the future. The car was really strong and the team worked well all weekend.”
For Beretta, however, no rest: indeed, he will debut next weekend in VLN (Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring), the endurance championship that runs exclusively on the old German Nürburgring track. Michele will be at the wheel, for the first time, of an Audi R8 LMS GT3 deployed by the Phoenix Racing team, shared with Nicolay Møller Madsen and Steve Jans, for a 6-hour race that promises to be very interesting: “I’ll be back at the Nordschleife after the debut last year with a Porsche Cayman – says Beretta on the eve – It is an incredible circuit, there is no bend equal to the other for 25 km. Driving a GT3 will be a significant step forward I will have to get used to very different speeds and also to manage traffic since there will be 153 cars at the start with very different performances. We will race in Pro-Am class, it will be a good battle with Mercedes and BMW. Fortunately, good weather is planned for the weekend and the unknown weather, often crucial on this track, should not complicate my debut in GT3.”
The program of the ROWE 6 Stunden ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen foresees free practice tomorrow and then concentrates on that of Saturday 3rd August: qualifications from 8:30 to 10 am while the start at 6 Hours will start at noon; the race can be followed in live-streaming on www.vln.de or on the YouTube channel “Nürburgring”.