Latin-American joy as Menchaca-Siebert win Race 2 at Portimão, in maiden GT Open success for Motopark

Diego Menchaca and Marcos Siebert won Race 2 today in Portimão, giving Motopark its first win in the series. The Latin American pair, third in yesterday’s race 1, perfectly mastered the events to beat the winners of Race 1. Al Faisal Al Zubair (Al Manar by GetSpeed) in the one- two of the Mercedes AMG. The Audi R8 LMS of debuting Eastalent Racing took its maiden podium with Simon Reicher and Christopher Haase. Zubair-Shiller are obvilusly the standings leaders ahead of Menchaca-Siebert after this opening round (27 vs Z5 points).

An emotional Menchaca expressed his joy at the end of the race: “It’s great to win at our first round, it all went perfectly, I want to thank the team and all our partners, and most of all Marcos, who has become a brother for me”, said the Mexican referring to his Argentine teammate, with whom he shares similar career patterns.

There was big battle in Pro-Am, with the AF Corse Ferrari of Marco Pulcini-Eddie Cheever taking the win and the Italian team also imposed one of its cars in Am, with Alessandro Cozzi- Giorgio Sernagiotto.

THE RACE – Poleman Fabian Schiller takes a perfect start, followed by Cheever, Haase and Menchaca, who have passed Fagg. After 1 lap, the three first positions haven’t change while Fagg cimbs back to fourth, with Lietz also ahead of Menchaca, now sixth. Follow Pitamber, Valente, Sernagiotto (first in Am), Rueda and Schirò. Grunewald is in the pts after the opening lap.

Gaps remain narrow in the first ten laps, with the first six covered by 10 seconds by lap 8, with the most interesting battle going on for 7th between Pitamber, Valente and Rueda.

By lap 14, when the window for the driver change opens, Schiller’s dvantage has grown to 5.5 seconds on Cheever, 7 on Haase, 8 on Fagg, 10 on Lietz and 12 on Menchaca. Pitamber is sixth, resisting well to Valente and Rueda, followed by schirò, Sernagiotto , Chovet, Marinangeli, Kodric, Arrow and Azzam. The leading car stops in lap 18, when it has a 7-second advantage.

The pit stop phase goes to the advantage of Siebert, who takes the lead ahead of Reicher, passed by Al Zubair in lap 23, with Kolb and De Haan eight seconds behind the top, then Pulcini, Barr, Scholze and Rosi. In Am, Cozzi leads ahead of Cipriani, Kirchmayr and Rumpfkeil.

Siebert extends his lead to 4 seconds, now on Al Zubair, who has passed Reicher. The second group includes De Haan, Barr, Kolb, Pulcini and Scholze. Nothing changes in the top 5, while there is fight for the win in Pro-Am, with Pulcini holding first position ahead of Scholze and a charging Basz. In Am, Cozzi keeps the advantage ahead of Rumpfkeil and Cipriani.