Herberth Motorsport takes hard-fought win at Hankook 12H HUNGARY

Herberth Motorsport has taken victory at the 2021 Hankook 12H HUNGARY following a race-long battle with CP Racing. Both the Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (#91, Daniel Allemann / Ralf Bohn / Alfred Renauer) and CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (#85, Charles Putman / Charles Espenlaub / Joe Foster / Shane Lewis) took this morning’s restart from the front row of the grid, although an electric start from the second Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (#92, Jürgen Häring / Bobby Gonzales / Marco Seefried / Daniel Allemann) from the second row meant CP Racing had already fallen back to 3rd by the second corner. Opting to run long when the lead #91 Herberth Porsche pitted for fuel, CP Racing soon hit the front, and was even able to extend its advantage when a well-timed Code 60 caution period coincided with the American team’s first pit stop of the day.

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Now on alternate refueling strategies, both teams continued to swap the lead throughout the afternoon until scintillating stints from Herberth Motorsport at three-quarter distance allowed the Bavarian squad to pull ahead.

Herberth Motorsport eventually completed 367 laps of the 4.381km Hungaroring en-route to its fourth victory of the season. The result simultaneously marks the sixth consecutive win for a Porsche in the 24H SERIES in 2021.

“It was a cool race for us,” Alfred Renauer explained to radiolemans.com’s Lukas Gajewski. “This was a very hard fight with the CP Racing car, because they had a good strategy, so we had to give it our all. Thanks to the whole team. They did a great job, like the whole season, and I’m really happy with this result. Hopefully we can do this again in Sebring!”

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Behind CP Racing, which equaled its best result in 2nd, the Rutronik Racing by TECE Audi R8 LMS GT3 (#18, Michael Doppelmayr / Pierre Kaffer / Swen Herberger) was a surprise podium finisher having moved into 3rd overall just six minutes from the end.

In a courteous gesture to its fellow Audi customer, long-time podium contender Car Collection Motorsport (#500, Martin Rump / Martin Lechmann / Nathanaël Berthon) moved aside in the closing stages of the race to allow Rutronik Racing to maximize its points in the title hunt. A near-flawless run for Car Collection Motorsport was blighted only by a faulty radio, which led to miscommunication between driver and mechanics, and the Audi running out of fuel on-track in the early going.

An equally impressive run from the Willi Motorsport by Ebimotors Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (#955, Fabrizio Broggi / Sergiu Nicolae / Sabino de Castro) saw the 991-class winner round out the overall top five, the Romanian-Italian team having overtaken JR Motorsport (#2, Ted van Vliet / Ruud Olij / Bas Schouten) on merit on the start-finish straight. 6th overall was nevertheless an impressive result for the latter’s BMW M6 GT3 on the car’s series debut.

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The RD Signs racing team Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo (#720, Audrius Butkevicius / Nicola Michelon / Paulius Paskevicius) finished 7th in the GT division to secure a hard-earned GTX-class win. Running the 12-hour event without ABS, the Raging Bull first lost time in the gravel trap – which brought out the fifth of the event’s seven Code 60 caution periods – and twice lost its right rear wheel on its way onto pit road. The Lithuanian team’s efforts were aided however by the Vortex V8 Vortex 1.0 (#701, Philippe Bonnel / Gilles Courtois / Nicolas Nobs), which finished 2nd in-class but fell an hour behind its category rival at the beginning of the event with alternator problems.

Despite late-race drama for the ST Racing BMW M4 GT4 (#438, Samantha Tan / Chandler Hull / Jon Miller), which suffered a broken diff mount quite literally at the 11th hour, the Canadian team recovered to finish 8th in the GT division and secure its third GT4-class win of the season. The result moves ST Racing to the top of the Overall GT Teams’ standings, narrowly ahead of Vortex V8.

MP Racing (#58, Thomas Gostner / David Gostner / Corinna Gostner) completed the GT division top 10. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 suffered significant front-end damage half-way through the race after making heavy contact with the barriers at turn four, but the Italian team would eventually return to the track following an impressive three-hour pit stop to affect repairs.

The season finale of this year’s 24H SERIES powered by Hankook will be held on 18-19-20 November at the Sebring International Raceway in the United States of America. The inaugural Hankook 24H SEBRING will mark the first time that the Floridian circuit has hosted a 24-hour international motor race. Further information can be found on www.24hseries.com.

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