The second ever stage of the Russian Endurance Cup SMP RCRS Endurance took place on the country's most modern track, Igora Drive. More than 1,000 spectators attended the festival of speed, who were not embarrassed by the changeable weather. And all the participants who reached the finish line were waiting for festive fireworks.
41 pilots and 18 cars of several categories — so many gathered at the last stage. Regardless of the class, the pilots' equipment was refueled with race-tested high-tech G-Drive fuel from the Gazpromneft filling station network. It showed its effectiveness in the last season of the series, so in the new year it acted as a fuel partner not only for the G-Drive SMP RSKG, but also for the endurance racing championship. Fuel quality control throughout the season is ensured by a mobile laboratory that conducts regular checks at Gazpromneft gas stations.
The competition is the highest: the participants included Formula 1 pilots Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin, world champion in endurance racing Viktor Shaitar and prize-winner of international formula competitions Alexander Smolyar, W Series participant Irina Sidorkova, winners of foreign marathons Sergey Borisov, Rinat Salikhov and many others .
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Qualifications in endurance races determine the starting order, but they are not as important in terms of distance as they are in circuit races. Nevertheless, they showed the potential of the participants and vehicles, and it was no less interesting to follow them in the online broadcast on the VKontakte platform than the race itself.
Unfortunately, the crew of Alexander Smolyar and Viktor Shaitar could not take part in it: a 420-horsepower Nissan engine installed on their the sports prototype BR03, could not withstand the loads even in the morning training.
But the second prototype of the SMP Racing team, driven by Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin, showed the third time, losing less than a second in qualifying to the 600-horsepower Mercedes-AMG GT3.< /p> 1/2 2/2
The race confirmed the advantages of the domestic sports prototype over German supercars in corners. In the first hour, it was clearly visible how much faster the BR03 was in the technical connections of the Igora Drive — and how powerful the engines allowed Mercedes to level it on the straights. But, as in any car marathon, a lot depended on the reliability of the technique and luck.
Not everything went smoothly for the crew of Rinat Salikhov and Sergey Stolyarov: due to technical problems, their Mercedes lost the BR03 in the fight. Moreover, at the equator of the race, they fell out of the top three leaders of the most powerful Group F. And only then they began to win back the lost time, but to no avail — in third place was the crew on the Ferrari 458 of the SMP Racing team, which was represented by Irina Sidorkova and Alexander Skryabin. The crew of Denis Remenyako and Konstantin Tereshchenko finished second in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 — they were very fast, but also encountered malfunctions. So the first place thanks to a combination of pace, well-balanced team work and stability was won by the SMP Racing duo of formula drivers Sergey Sirotkin and Vitaly Petrov — they got the first victory for the BR03 prototype in the Russian Cup!
In the GT4 class, the competition was even higher . For the victory in this group, 9 very close paced crews fought. And throughout the entire distance, the struggle did not subside — as if the pilots had to drive 60 kilometers, as in traditional circuit races, and not marathon 600 kilometers. jpg» />The fastest in qualifying was the Toyota Supra of Vadim Antipov, Samvel Iskoyants and Dmitry Lebedev. However, in the course of a tense race, they were outstripped by competitors in the BMW M4: Vladimir Atoev and Oleg Semenov became the best in this class. Third place in this standings went to Michael Belov, Alexander Vartanyan and Stanislav Aksenov, who drove Toyota Supra.
The Touring test group combines several classes of touring cars at once. Definitely the fastest among them was the Cupra Leon TCR piloted by Alexander Lvov and Lev Nikitin. LADA Granta S1600 level training is much slower, but allowed Andrey Petukhov, Tatyana Eliseeva and Yuri Arshansky to overcome the maximum possible number of laps. The only car that retired in the race was the VAZ-2106 of the «historical» standings — Vyacheslav Kalashnikov, Dmitry Krylov and Oleg Ryzhkov dropped out of the fight shortly before the end of the race.
But the Shortcut, driven by Kirill Kirakozov and Mikhail Loboda, easily overcame the entire distance.
And the bright end of such a dramatic race was the fireworks that lit up the track immediately after the finish.
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You could follow the progress of the race on the air of the Match channel! Country, as well as on the VK Video platform.
The next round of the Russian Cup in endurance racing SMP RSKG Endurance will be held in October at the Groznaya Fortress circuit.
And the next round of G-Drive circuit racing SMP RSKG Touring will be held on June 17 and 18 at the KazanRing Canyon circuit — details and tickets on the Speed Festival website.
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