On May 11, the Moscow Raceway near Moscow hosted the first auto marathon this season, which opened the fight for the Russian Cup in the five-stage SMP RSKG Endurance series . For 4 hours, the best pilots of the country fought for victory in three technical classes. The crew of the leaders on the domestic sports prototype BR03 in the colors of SMP Racing during this time covered over half a thousand kilometers, and even a fire at the pit stop did not prevent Alexander Smolyar and Kirill Smal from winning their first victory in the overall classification.
The marathon at Moscow Raceway was filled with events. Just a quarter of an hour after the start, during the struggle between three Mercedes GT4 class cars, Sergei Borisov crashed his car, and his YADRO Motorsport partner Rinat Salikhov never got behind the wheel.
The Mercedes of Sergei Stolyarov, the founder of the same YADRO Motorsport team, was also damaged, so when he was replaced a little later by SMP Racing program pilot Viktor Shaitar, he was unable to brake in time and crashed into the bump stop.
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But the final half hour of the race was the most dramatic. In the overall standings, SMP Racing pilots Alexander Smolyar and Kirill Smal were in the lead for a long time. Before the final segment, the French prototype Ligier JS53 of world champion Roman Rusinov and Kirill Kirakozov came close to them. And when the leaders made a pit stop, it was the BALCHUG Racing crew that led the race.
During refueling, the sports prototype of the SMP Racing team caught fire: fuel got on the hot power unit. Fortunately, the flames were quickly put out, and Kirill Smal rushed in pursuit of his rivals who had escaped.
And they seemed to have decided to give him a gift, having miscalculated the fuel: Ligier barely made it to the pits to get a supply of gasoline for the remaining laps, and jumped onto the track immediately after Smal, who had regained the lead!
But the tires on the French car were already worn out. Therefore, in the final laps, Sergei Sirotkin, who replaced the no less famous SMP Racing pilot Vitaly Petrov at the wheel of the BR03 prototype, began to catch up with Kirakozov.
And yet the crew of Rusinov and Kirakozov retained second place, and Petrov and Sirotkin earned bronze, only 7 seconds behind him.
In the GT4 class, the crew of Denis Remenyako and Adam Christodoulou won in the Mercedes-AMG GT4 (4 1st place in the absolute).
In the Touring class — the crew of permanent participants of the SMP RSKG Nikolay Vikhansky, Roman Golikov and Petr Plotnikov on a Cupra TCR DSG (11th place in the absolute).
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In total, 17 crews and 37 pilots were entered into the race. 13 crews finished successfully.
Winners and prize-winners of the 1st stage of the SMP RSKG Endurance
GROUP F
1Alexander Smolyar Kirill Smal No. 17BR03SMP Racing — 17302Kirill Kirakozov Roman Rusinov No. 21 Ligier JS53 Evo 2BALCHUG Racing233Vitaly Petrov Sergey Sirotkin No. 1BR03SMP Racing — 118GT4
1Denis Remenyako Adam Christodulou#13Mercedes-AMG GT4Capital Racing Team302Andrey Goncharov David Pogosyan#37Toyota Supra GR GT4 EvoIskra Motorsport223Sergey Titarenko Alexander Vartanyan#5Toyota Supra GR GT4 EvoX Motorsport — 518TOURING
1Nikolai Vikhansky Roman Golikov Peter Plotnikov#888Cupra TCR DSGBalashikha Training Center DOSAAF RF02Evgeny Chikinev Alexey Denisov Anastasia Mikhailus#8Audi RS3 LMS-03Sergey Baldin Valery Smirnov Alexey Gribanov#53Mazda 3Mazda Karting Academy0
The next stage of the SMP RSKG Endurance series will take place on June 21-23 at the Kaz race track an Ring within a large racing weekend, which will be held jointly with the stage of the SMP RSKG Touring sprint series.
Before this, all 7 participants classes of the SMP RSKG Touring tournament will gather at the Nizhny Novgorod Ring circuit on June 1 and 2. You can get acquainted with the racing and entertainment program and buy a ticket for the Nizhny Novgorod stage of the Russian circuit racing series on their website.
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