Rutronik Porsche Wins Zandvoort Race 1

Photo: JEP/SRO

Patric Niederhauser and Sven Mueller took victory for Rutronik Racing in GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup Race 1 at Zandvoort.

Mueller took the No. 96 Porsche 911 GT3 R across the line with a margin of 5.858 seconds over the No. 63 GRT Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Luca Engslter and Jordan Pepper, securing Porsche’s first Sprint Cup win of the season.

The Rutronik Porsche started third overall but Niederhauser grabbed second on a chaotic opening lap that ended in a safety car after the No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3 and No. 24 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R found the Turn 3 gravel.

After the restart, Niederhauser spent the opening stint of the race running behind the polesitting No. 89 Lionspeed GP Porsche of Bastian Buus.

However, a longer mandatory pitstop time for Bronze contenders meant the No. 89 dropped back as Bashar Mardini took over from Buus.

This allowed Mueller to rejoin in the lead and open a healthy margin, although Pepper lightly chipped away at the lead in the final ten minutes.

Pepper ran fourth after the pitstops but made an opportunistic pass on the No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel after the German got held up in traffic.

That gave the South African third, when became seconds when he also overtook the No. 25 Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Paul Evrard.

Engel also found his way past and then pulled a gap that was sufficient enough to maintain third even after a five-second penalty for an unsafe release.

As a result, he and Lucas Auer completed the overall podium, with Evrard and Gilles Magnus taking the Gold Cup win in fourth.

Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts rounded out the top five aboard the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, ahead of the No. 59 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

A late-race battle for seventh place was decided in the favor of the No. 78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Sandy Mitchell and Hugo Cook, as Cook withstood pressure of the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG of Maxime Martin.

Arthur Leclerc finished closely behind in the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari he shared with Thomas Neubauer.

Ezequiel Perez Companc and Alex Aka took the Silver Cup win in the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi.

Mardini, meanwhile, hung on to capture the Bronze Cup victory upon Lionspeed’s Sprint Cup debut.