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8th July, 2018 – International GT Open, Hungaroring
Edoardo Liberati and Kang Ling finished third in Sunday's International GT Open race at the Hungaroring. Giulio Borlenghi and Andrzej Lewandowski claimed their third class win of the season and now lead the Am Championship by seven points.
The battle for honours in the International GT Open resumed at the Hungaroring this weekend with twenty-seven cars fighting it out during round four of the Championship. VSR fielded an unchanged driver line-up for their two Lamborghinis with Liberati and Ling in the Pro car and Borlenghi and Lewandowski behind the wheel of the Am entry. Ling and Borlenghi drove in the wet qualifying session on Saturday morning. Both drivers were impressive in the tricky conditions, Ling putting the Pro car on the third row and Borlenghi setting the second fastest time in the Am class. The track was dry for race one and Ling maintained his place during a scrappy start that saw Borlenghi run wide and fall back to twentieth. On lap seven Ling, who had been involved in a four-car battle for the final podium place, had a coming together with Di Folco and was forced to retire. Borlenghi meanwhile was working his way back up the order, passing Hahn and Alvarez and was back to second in class when the pit window opened. The Brazilian came in for fuel just before the pit window closed and handed over to Lewandowski. Despite a fifteen second success penalty from the last round the Pole was able to maintain second in class, exiting pit-lane just ahead of Mikulasko. He quickly pulled away from the ARC Bratislava driver but a penalty for speeding in the pit-lane later dropped the VSR car down to fourth in Am.
Liberati and Lewandowski qualified the VSR Lamborghinis for race two. In a competitive session which saw less than one second cover the top thirteen drivers Liberati took a place on row four and Lewandowski qualified third in Am. Liberati made a flying start, gaining two places before the race was neutralised behind the safety car as the crashed cars of Mikulasko, Marques and Constantino were cleared up. When racing resumed Pier Guidi in third was slow to restart allowing Khodair and Breukers to instantly gain a four second advantage over the rest of the field. For the remainder of his stint Liberati was blocked in a train of cars from third to eighth covered by just a handful of seconds. Lewandowski took full advantage of the demise of some of his fiercest rivals to build up an advantage at the head of the Am field that would compensate for the success penalty he had to discount in the pit stops. When the pit window opened Liberati stopped immediately, handing the VSR Lamborghini over to Ling who with a clear circuit quickly became the fastest man on track. Borlenghi took over from Lewandowski on lap sixteen and exited the pits with a slim advantage over the second placed Am, Coimbra. The Mercedes driver would get to within a second of Borlenghi as the chequered flag approached but was never close enough to make a challenge for the class lead. Ling closed the gap to Hahn at the front of the field to just five seconds in his stint and took the flag in a well-deserved third place overall, three seconds behind Agostini.
Borlenghi and Lewandowski’s third Am class win of the season leaves them with a seven-point lead as the Championship now takes a break for the summer. Racing will resume at Silverstone at the beginning of September.
ENDS
