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Victory and four second places for VSR at Silverstone

14th May 2017 - Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, Silverstone

Changeable weather met the thirty-two Lamborghini Huracan’s who convened at Silverstone this weekend for the second round of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe Championship. After bright and sunny skies for the unofficial test on Thursday, rain welcomed the teams on Friday morning for free practice. VSR fielded an unchanged line up with Abbate-Nemoto in the number 6 Pro car, Dreyspring-Liang in the number 46 Pro-Am entry and the Polish pairing or Lewandowski-Myszkowski in the 66 Am car. Despite having zero experience of the high-speed and technically challenging British track Nemoto and Abbate were quickly up to speed, setting the 3rd quickest time in the Pro category. Lewandowski and Myszkowski confirmed their status as Am front runners, setting the 11th fastest time overall. It was even wetter for second free practice and while the 6 and 66 cars did limited laps to avoid taking unnecessary risks in the difficult conditions, Liang and Dreyspring used the session to get some valuable wet running and Dreyspring set the 5th fastest time.

It was spitting with rain as the cars headed out for qualifying on Saturday morning and the slippery circuit contributed to a farcical session which was red flagged after ten minutes. Half the remaining time was then run under Full Course Yellow and setting a time became a lottery with luck on the side of the drivers who had managed to get in a good run right at the start of the session. The track finally went green with time enough for just one flying lap and all three VSR drivers improved with Abbate putting the Pro entry on row four. Myszkowski qualified one row behind him, an outstanding performance from the Am driver to finish in the top ten just 1.7 seconds off pole. Dreyspring, unlucky with traffic, qualified on row seven and was the 4th fastest Pro-Am car. His bad luck continued when he was taken out of the race by Negra on the first lap. The remaining VSR made good starts and when the Safety Car was called out on lap two Abbate was up to 5th and Myszkowski was leading the Am class. Racing resumed on lap four and the drivers held station until the pit window opened. Abbate came straight in and handed the number 6 car over to Nemoto who squeezed out of the pits just ahead of Spinelli. Two laps later Myszkowski swapped with Lewandowski but the Polish pair were delayed during the driver change and slipped down to 2nd in Am. Out front Nemoto was flying as he chased a podium finish. With Spinelli in his wheel tracks he caught and passed Jeffries for second and reduced the gap to eventual winner Cecotto to less than one second. A post-race time penalty demoted Abbate-Nemoto to 3rd place which quickly became 2nd once more when Spinelli’s car was disqualified for a technical infringement. Lewandowski closed to within half a second of the winning Am car before the flag fell and 2nd in class allowed him and team-mate Myszkowski to extend their Championship lead to twenty points.

The track was declared wet at the start of qualifying for Sunday’s race but although the circuit conditions were tricky they didn’t warrant switching to wet tyres. Nemoto was quick to set the pace, taking pole from Tweraser and Cecotto on his third lap. He improved again, two laps later, and returned to the pits before the session ended, confident that with the rain falling harder at the back of the circuit his pole time was unbeatable. Liang qualified on row five, 4th quickest in Pro-Am, while Lewandowski put in another fine performance to qualify 10th overall and take his second Am pole of the season. There were clear skies over Silverstone when Nemoto led the field out for Sunday’s race and the Japanese driver made a perfect getaway putting a second over Cecotto behind him in just one lap. His leading margin was negated almost immediately when another crash from Negra bought out the safety car for three laps. Immediately quick at the re-start Nemoto set the fastest lap of the race as rain began to fall on parts of the circuit. The pit window opened on lap eight and the first VSR driver to stop was Liang who came in from 4th in Pro-Am to hand over to Dreyspring. A lap later Lewandowski, who had been comfortably leading the Am class, gave the 66 car to Myszkowski and Nemoto handed the Pro entry over to Abbate a lap later. The Brazilian quickly became embroiled in a tense battle with last year’s runner-up Postiglione and they two were rarely separated by more than a handful of tenths of a second as the race progressed. By lap eighteen Dreyspring was up to 7th overall, running 2nd in Pro-Am and chasing Galbiati hard with Myszkowski in 9th untroubled at the head of the Am field. As the leaders started the penultimate lap the top four cars were separated by just 1.5 seconds and with just minutes to go Postiglione found a way past Abbate to snatch the win from the VSR driver who took the flag in 2nd place. Dreyspring finished 2nd in Pro-Am whilst Myszkowski completed a dominant weekend for himself and team-mate Lewandowski by winning the Am class and finishing 8th overall.

As the teams look ahead to the next round of the Championship at Paul Ricard the driver’s standings are a close run affair. Abbate-Nemoto lie 2nd in Pro, just one point behind the Championship leaders Postiglione-Cecotto whilst Dreyspring-Liang are 3rd in Pro-Am. Lewandowski-Myszkowski are dominating the Am championship and have an astonishing twenty-eight point lead after just four races.

VSR Lamborghini Super Trofeo Huracan’s will be out on track again at the beginning of June for the Misano round of the Italian GT Championship whilst next weekend the team’s Lamborghini GT3 Huracan will race at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand in the second round of the Blancpain GT Asia Series.