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2nd September, 2018 – International GT Open, Silverstone
Giulio Borlenghi and Andrzej Lewandowski extended their GT Open Championship Am class lead at Silverstone by claiming victory in both races. Starting from the class pole for the first time the pair overcame a fifteen second success penalty to win on Saturday and a twenty second success penalty to win on Sunday.
Round five of the International GT Open took place at Silverstone this weekend and VSR fielded two Lamborghini Huracans with unchanged driver line-ups. Liberati and Ling took charge of the team’s Pro entry and Borlenghi and Lewandowski drove the Am car. Qualifying for Saturday’s race saw Lewandowski take the Am class pole for the first time this season whilst Ling put the Pro Lamborghini on row seven. After a clean getaway by both cars Ling ran just outside the points in his stint as behind him Lewandowski took command of the Am class. Holding the lead at the start the Polish driver began immediately pulling away from his competitors and had stretched out a twelve second gap by the time the pit window opened. Ling stopped almost immediately allowing Liberati to take over the Pro car. The Italian had a quiet race and took the flag in twelfth place. Lewandowski pitted on lap sixteen from the class lead. The Am car had a hefty fifteen second success penalty from the previous round to discount and when Borlenghi exited the pits he was only just ahead of Burke and Konrad, lying second and third in class. The vastly more experienced Burke got ahead of Borlenghi on lap twenty but the Brazilian kept his head and followed the local driver closely whilst keeping Konrad behind him. With three laps to go Borlenghi made his move and wrested the class lead back from Burke, immediately pulling out a comfortable two second gap which he maintained to the flag. The pair’s fourth victory of the season extended their Championship lead to eight points.
Sunday morning’s qualifying session was undertaken by Liberati and Borlenghi. Liberati qualified on row nine and Borlenghi, third in class, earned a place on the row behind. A messy first corner saw both drivers lose a place and then there was little movement throughout the field until the pit window opened on lap thirteen. Liberati stopped immediately and Ling took over the Pro car. Four laps later Borlenghi pitted and this time the Am car had a twenty second success penalty to discount. Lewandowski exited the pits third in class, over seven seconds behind the BMW in second place. After taking a few laps to get his rhythm the Pole started to inexorably close the gap to the cars ahead of him. Meanwhile Ling was trading places with Saturday’s winner Serra and the pair worked their way past Konopka, Baptista, West and Loggie as the race drew to a close. With five minutes left Lewandowski was within two seconds of Chuklin’s BMW and the pair were eating into Konopka’s Am class lead. With three laps to go Lewandowski caught and passed Chuklin and had a two second deficit to Konopka. By the end of the penultimate lap the two Lamborghinis were together and as they headed into Copse for the final time Lewandowski dived down the inside of his rival to take first place. The second win of the weekend for Borlenghi and Lewandowski gives them a ten-point lead in the Championship with two rounds left to go. Ling finished in eleventh place, just outside of the points.
