BEC4H OPENING ROUND IN RIGA WITH AMAZING VICTORY AND HEAVY CRASH
The first event of BEC started with surprising result of the qualifying happening on Friday. Most of this series lovers were quite socked to see VW Golf GTI TCR of a team “GSR Motorsport” in a pole position as there were two very fast BMWs and also Porsche Cayman GT4 seen making laps. However, Mikk Maaten, who drove the VW Golf showed the best time of 1 minute 23 seconds and assured the pole position for a team.
Just before the qualifying some changes were made: the A3000+ class was split into A3000+A (cars with atmospheric engines) and A3000+T (turbocharged engines) upon the request of the participants. So finally during the 1st event of the BEC there where 7 classes fighting for victory including the overall. From 19 teams that have registered for the event only “Flash Racing” did not show up due to the problems with engine.
Car caprices and accidents
The race started with an incident between two TCR type cars: Estonian “ALM Motorsport” with SEAT Leon TCR hit the “VW Golf GTI TCR” of pole position owner team. That forced “GSR Motorsport” to lose very important positions right at the beginning of an endurance race. “DHL Racing Team Junior” was quick to come back to pits after a spin in track. They had some serious technical problems and didn’t come back to race till the end. Other teams joined it in the pits: technical issues did not allow to continue the race the “Cone Forest Motorsport“ team with BMW M3 and “Skuba racing team“, considered to be a potential winner of the race. There were some issues with the car of new participants of championship “London Grill racing” SEAT Leon TCR. They lost the power, spent a lot of time in pits and after coming back had no chance to fight for podium.
Two more teams had to fight with cars showing caprices all race long and both of them were competing in “Diesel” class – “PGM Technika Team“ with BMW 330 and “Antėja Kraujotyrimai“ with “Audi RS4”. In this case the “PGM Technika Team” was more lucky one and managed to solve the issues ge3t back to the race and take the third place on the podium. “Porsche Lietuva“ teams‘ driver tried to avoid a racing incident in a track and made a damaged to their Porsche Cayaman GT4, losing splitter and some parts as well as the influence of aerodynamics helping to go much quicker.
Strong crash of “DHL Racing team“ team
After two hours of endurance “DHL Racing Team“ BMW M3 GTR with Ramūnas Čapkauskas behind the wheel came back to refuelling and straight away kept going back to the pits due to technical issues. After losing plenty of time they managed to get back to the race but it wasn’t for long. When 47 minutes were left until the finish teams’ driver Nerijus Dovydaitis crashed the BMW to the blocks next to the track forcing car to get up in the air and to land painfully on the roof. As the driver after the race was O.K., the BMW M3 GTR is not ever going back to race again.
This big accident caused a “Safety Car phase” in a track that was cancelled only 9 minutes before the finish. When the Safety Car left the track everyone tried to secure the positions or to win the higher ones by overtaking as the gaps in between the racers were really small. It has been a tight fight but eventually “Rotoma Racing” kept the 1st place overall and in GT class and “IGORIOLANKAI” took the 2nd place overall and 1st in their class. The 3rd place overall was taken by “ALM Motorsport” team from Estonia and their SEAT Leon TCR. In Diesel class the victory was taken by “Sparti Reklama – PF Kekava racing team“; the leader of A2000 class became newbies from Russia “Neva Motorsport“ team and their Honda Civic; “ITCC Racing” team from Klaipėda took the first place in A3000+A class and Finish team “Black rose racing” became leading in A3000 class.
