There are now 180 minutes to go until the end of the Gulf 12h, the last seasonal event of the Intercontinental GT Challenge 2023 which in Abu Dhabi sees Mercedes leading when we have completed 9 hours of racing, now plunging into the night.
After a long period of calm, where the positions on the track were now taking shape, here’s another twist with a bad accident in which Stefano Borghi was the unfortunate protagonist.
When braking at turn 5, the Tsunami team standard bearer lost control of his #79 Porsche, disastrously impacting the left guardrail, destroying the 911 and scattering debris everywhere. Fortunately, having emerged on his own two feet, the San Marino driver walked away while the race direction decreed a new Full Course Yellow, which was immediately taken as an opportunity to make a pit stop by most of the protagonists.
Here the guys from Team WRT were reactive, as usual, immediately recalling the #46 BMW and sending Valentino Rossi ahead of the #99 Mercedes of Gruppe M and #14 of 2 Seas Motorsport.
Once again the Safety Car was called into action, at the restart around the ninth hour others returned to the pit lane and the ‘Doctor’ was able to lead the group with the AMGs behind caught up in lapped traffic and delayed, having made the stop further ahead .
Rossi restarted with 7″ on Luca Stolz armed with the #99, and a lap against the AMGs #14 and #77 driven by Maximilan Götz and Lucas Auer, but when it was his turn to pass the wheel to Nick Yelloly in the M4 there was an small problem with the pedal which slowed down the last operations.
This allowed Mikael Grenier to take the lead for about ten seconds with the #99 Mercedes, inherited from Stolz the previous lap, with the two Star cars #14 and #77 remaining third and fourth within a lap.
Photo by: SRO
#99 Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Mikael Grenier
Coming to the rest, the Porsche #21 of Car Collection resists in the Top5, firmly holding the lead in Class AM given that the Mercedes #3 of 2 Seas Motorsport and the 911 #7 of Herberth Motorsport have dropped to 8th and 9th place overall, while the Audi #2 of Haas RT is 16th and even further behind.
Among the top ten overall we find the McLaren #27 of Optimum Motorsport sixth, standing out in PRO/AM with a good margin over the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1, while the Ferrari #25 of AF Corse gained third place in the category and the overall Top10 with a great stint by Alessio Rovera, who has now given up the seat to Giorgio Sernagiotto, competing with the 296 of Racing One #26 and Kessel Racing #11.
Meanwhile, Sky Tempesta’s McLaren #93 remains sixth PRO/AM and this would give Jonathan Hui success in the IGTC Independent Cup, given that the Herberth Motorsport Porsche #33 driven by his rival Antares Au is eighth.
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