Plenty of lead changes in the first two hours of the 24H BARCELONA
MONTMELÓ (6 September, 2014) – On Friday evening, hail and thunderstorms stopped the action in night practice for the 24H BARCELONA, but on Saturday morning, the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya showed itself from its best side again, ready for action in this weekend’s 24-hour race for GTs, touring cars and 24H Specials. At noon, 65 cars started the formation lap and after one lap behind the safety car, the field was released for the race. The first two hours already brought plenty of changes in the overall lead and also the first ‘code 60’ neutralisation.
Starting from pole position, Peter Kox took the lead with the Scuderia Praha Ferrari 458 Italia (#4, Písarík/Jirík/Malucelli/Kox), but on the first racing lap, he was overtaken by his compatriot Christiaan Frankenhout in the Hofor Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 (#1, M. Kroll/Eggimann/Heyer/Frankenhout/C. Kroll). Frankenhout built up a four seconds’ lead and set the fastest lap time of the race so far on lap 3 (1:51.669 minutes), but as the front runners were caught up in traffic, Kox used all his experience to close the gap to Frankenhout and finally get past to claim back the lead on lap 10. Pit stops then caused further position changes out on front towards the end of the first hour. Other cars to take turns in the lead were the Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini (#6, Talbot/Perrin/Barth/Eskelinen) and the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW Z4 (#24, Oeverhaus/Richter/Aust/Posavac).
