The World Pro Racing GT3 Masters Fuelled by Enemed kicked off with a bang on the 14th of September 2019. For months it had been planned by World Pro Racing’s professional race organisers and staff. Teams had entered, setups had been created and a field of drivers with centuries of combined racing experience between them had been signed. It was clear that this was going to be a huge league.
In terms of the cars, the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 was obviously the most popular decision, with the majority of the grid sporting the iconic British gentlemen’s GT cars, including Singularity Racing drivers Yuri Kasdorp and Martin Dyrlund who lined up second and fourth respectively. Don’t be fooled by the Aston Martin’s luxury car exterior, as beneath the bonnet sits a beast waiting to be set free.
After a thrillingly quick lap, pole position went to Jernej Simoncic in his furiously fast Audi R8 LMS GT3 fielded by Avid Chronic Racing, but there were concerns before the race about whether he’d be able to hold off the bigger, more brutish GT3s behind him such as the Aston Martins or the Mercedes AMG GT3 of Erhan Jajovski, who started immediately behind him in third place.
When the race started, these fears were immediately recognised as he quickly started to drop through the field. By the end of the first lap he was third due to a mistake at Copse, and by the end of the second lap he was down to fourth place behind a charging Jaroslav Honsik.
This meant that Yuri Kasdorp took the lead of the race, and he quickly started to pull away from Jajovski in second place, pulling out tenths of a second every lap and building up a masterful buffer in short time.
A move in the early stages moved Triple A Esports driver Risto Kappet up into the top five, as he bravely closed the door on Dyrlund and claimed his position with the authority of a cat demanding food. However, Kappet made a mistake and ran wide whilst trying to pass Simoncic for fourth, leaving Dyrlund the space to pass both of them! It had been an ‘attack or be attacked’ situation for Kappet, but he turned out to be his own worst enemy. He did manage to make the move on Simoncic half a lap later, with Jim Parisis following him through, but Dyrlund was already up the road.
Bence Zsupanek for M1RA Esports was the first driver to retire from the race after colliding with Itamar Yativ in turn one, and over time several other drivers fell by the way side, namely Elvin Smith, Mantas Rekus (After a collision with Jason Absmeier led to a big crash), Xiang Gao and Tiziano Brioni.
Kappet, Parisis and Simoncic fought hard over fifth position, and Simoncic’s ACR team-mate Dawid Mroczek quickly caught up and joined the fray. It was a ferociously frightening fight which went on for over twenty minutes, and at much the same time Honzik and Dyrlund were disputing third place!
In the late stages, several drivers realised that they had misjudged their fuel usage and were forced to duck into the pits for a splash-and-dash, including the two Atlantic Motorsports drivers who lost many points as a result.
Dyrlund pressured Honzik for laps upon laps, forcing the latter to push and push in order to defend. Sadly for Honzik, this pushing came at a cost and he was forced to duck into the pits with just one lap remaining.
Despite everything going on for the lower podium positions, Yuri Kasdorp claimed an absolutely magnificent win by a significant margin from Erhan Jajovski and Martin Dyrlund. The other finishers who scored points were Risto Kappet, Jernej Simoncic, Jim Parisis, Dawid Mroczek, Jaroslav Honzik, Daniel Kiss, Marius Nicolae, Matteo Boschetti, Martin Vindis, Darren King, Matthew Beavis and Zoltan Csuti.
Due to their results in this terrifically exciting first race, Singularity Racing has taken the first step towards the prize pool of one thousand euros, but several other teams are in hot pursuit, especially Triple A Esports who currently occupy second place.
Next time out we head to Virginia International Raceway in the United States of America. It’s set to be an unmissable affair.