After the stops for refuelling and driver swaps, the first Full Course Yellow was triggered to remove debris
from the track after a puncture sustained by Duncan Cameron in the Spirit of Race 488 GTE. On the track,
Gidley then put Rinaldi Racing back into the lead ahead of Sarah Bovy, while Kessel Racing moved up from
eighth to sixth ahead of JMW Motorsport and the Iron Lynx sister car.
Third hour
After the interruptions over the opening 120 minutes of racing, the third hour went hitch-free, the highlight of
which was Matteo Cressoni’s attack on Varrone’s leadership at the wheel of the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari. The
Italian seized the lead, while the Argentinean managed the gap over the Porsche in third place.
Fourth hour
With 60 laps to go before the chequered flag, reigning team champions – Iron Lynx – were authoritatively
controlling the race with Davide Rigon ahead of Nicolas Varrone and the Porsche of Zacharie Robichon
attempting to fend off assaults from Michelle Gatting in the Iron Lynx 488 GTE, which in turn was being
pursued by the Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni who managed to overtake the tenacious Dane with just under
30 minutes left. The final twist came 12 minutes from the end when Davide Rigon, who at that point held a
12-second lead over Varrone, pulled into the pits to hand over to Matteo Cressoni to complete the minimum
driving time. Rinaldi Racing’s Ferrari now led the race with Bruni’s Porsche in the slipstream pulling out all
the stops over the final two laps. The 488 GTE driver, however, hung on to cross the finish line with a
120-millisecond advantage over the Italian, rewarding Rinaldi Racing with the win on their series debut. The
Iron Dames took fourth place, 14 seconds adrift of the winners, while fifth went to Kessel Racing who got
the better of the Oman Racing Aston Martin in the finale. Seventh position went to the Ferrari of Iron Lynx,
while Spirit of Race and JMW Motorsport closed out the top ten, followed by the second Rinaldi Racing
entry.
Result >>>
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