After a commanding run, the Red Camel-Jordans.nl CUPRA TCR (#101, Tom Coronel / Pepe Oriola / Ivo Breukers / Rik Breukers) has taken outright victory at the first-ever TCR SPA 500,
despite heavy rain enveloping the Belgian Grand Prix circuit in the closing stages. In doing so, the Dutch team also claimed the EXO TCR Nations’ Trophy.
Pepe Oriola took the chequered flag after completing 23 hours and 454 laps around the 7.004km Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The team enjoyed a faultless run, compounded only by a heavy rainstorm on Sunday morning, and a dramatic moment when team boss Ivo Breukers attempted a reset of the CUPRA’s traction control on-track, briefly losing all gears!
Alongside Spanish teammate – and TCR International Series race winner – Pepe Oriola, Dutch compatriots Ivo and Rik Breukers, and World Touring Car Championship legend Tom Coronel also secured the first ever EXO TCR Nations’ Trophy for The Netherlands.
Tom Coronel said: “It’s nice to have zero problems in a 23-hour race! Everything went well, the car had no problems, the drivers made no mistakes and the crew did a great job. This is how you win long-distance races!”
Rik Breukers continued: “It was an amazing race. I think we did a perfect job, and honestly, I can’t think of anything we could have done better. I’m so proud of everyone!”
The result marks the second consecutive endurance win for Red Camel-Jordans.nl at Spa-Francorchamps, following the team’s TCE win earlier this year at the Hankook 12H SPA.
After a strong run on its CREVENTIC debut, the DG Sport Compétition Peugeot 308 TCR (#308, Aurélien Comte / Teddy Clairet / Julien Briché) finished an impressive 2nd overall ahead of the TOPCAR sport by Bas Koeten Racing CUPRA TCR DSG (#131, Fabian Danz / Julien Apotheloz / Kari-Pekka Laaksonen / Antti Buri / Mikel Azcona). The latter lost 30 minutes in the pits to a broken fuel pump during the night, but put to bed a difficult event for Bas Koeten Racing, which was forced to retire two other cars after race-ending accidents.
Having started on the penultimate spot on the grid, the Viper Niza Racing CUPRA TCR (#65, Douglas Khoo / Dominic Ang / Melvin Moh / Fariqe Hairuma) drove an impressive race to finish 4th overall and 1st in the PRO/AM class, just ahead of nearest rival AC Motorsport’s Audi RS3 LMS (#8, Stephane Perrin / Vincent Radermecker / Stewart Lines / Mathieu Detry).
The Burton Racing Peugeot 308 TCR (#46, Pierre-Yves Corthals / Caren Burton / Armand Fumal / Olivier Meurens / Philippe Steveny) secured the AM class win on its endurance racing debut.
The Peugeot did so with a 6th place finish overall and despite suffering turbocharger issues moments before the race was due to begin.
Heading into the final 15 minutes of the race, 7th place had looked set to go to the Lestrup Racing Team Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#110, Peter Fahlström / Stefan Nilsson / Mats Olsson / Marcus Fluch). Unfortunately, in the treacherous conditions, the Swedish entry ended up in the gravel trap at Campus, and subsequently dropped to 8th place in the closing moments.
The first of two Teamwork Huff Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS’ (#852, Alex Hui Ka Tai / Sunny Wong Yat Shing / Paul Poon Tak Chun / Samuel Hsieh) completed the PRO/AM podium, and benefited from Lestrup Racing’s misfortune to collect 7th. Ironically, the sister #22 entry (Andy Yan / Rainey He / Neric Wei / Yan Chuang) also faltered in the closing moments and had to be recovered to the pits with less than five minutes left on the clock. The Hong Kong-based Audi was still been classified 9th.
Behind them, the Bas Koeten Racing Audi RS3 LMS (#125, Alex Au / Eric Lo / Eric Kwong / Kevin Wing Kin Tse) has been awarded 3rd in the AM class and 10th overall, despite retiring from the event after a heavy collision at Blanchimont.
The event’s final runner – the GDL team Australia Audi RS3 LMS (#9, Malcolm Niall / Brett Niall / Clint Harvey / Rory Penttinen / Darryl Clarke) – eventually finished 11th after losing close to four hours replacing a broken water pump and then the Audi’s turbocharger.
Dates for next year’s TCR SPA 500 have already been confirmed, and the 500-lap / 23-hour endurance epic will pull double duty alongside the Hankook 12H SPA on 1-2-3 May 2020 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. By Melissa Warren
Race results
1 101 PRO Red Camel-Jordans.nl — 454 laps — 2:35.008 34
Cupra TCR DSG
Red Camel-Jordans.nl Coronel-Oriola-Breukers-Breukers
23:02:11.018
162.67 138.03
2 308 PRO DG Sport Compétition — 449 laps — 2:34.616 25
Peugeot 308 TCR 22:46.572
DG Sport Competition Comte-Clairet-Briché
23:02:43.313
163.08 136.46
3 131 PRO TOPCAR sport with Bas Koeten Racing — 444 laps — 2:36.024 269
Cupra TCR DSG 23:54.421
Bas Koeten Racing Danz-A potheloz-Laaksonen-Buri-A zcona
23:04:19.600
161.61 134.78
4 65 PRO/AM Viper Niza Racing — 441 laps — 2:36.678 196
Cupra TCR DSG 12:51.025
Viper Niza Racing Khoo-Ang-Moh-Hairuman
23:05:34.100
160.93 133.75
5 8 PRO/AM AC Motorsport — 439 laps — 2:34.717 220
Audi RS3 LMS DSG 4:48.973
Stephane Perrin Perrin-Radermecker-Lines-Detry
23:04:20.987
162.97 133.26
6 46 AM Burton Racing — 436 laps — 2:37.159 57
Peugeot 308 TCR 10:36.104
East Belgian Racing Team Corthals-Burton-Fumal-Meurens-Steveny
23:03:12.885
160.44 132.46
7 852 PRO/AM Teamwork Huff Motorsport — 428 laps — 2:38.933 151
Audi RS3 LMS DSG 32:32.745
TeamWork Huff Motorsport Hui-Wong Yat Shing-Poon Tak Chun-Hsieh
23:03:19.282
158.65 130.02
8 110 AM Lestrup Racing Team — 424 laps — 2:38.240 36
Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR DSG
Lestrup Racing Team Fahlström-Nilsson-Olsson-Fluch
22:40:19.070
DNF 159.34 130.98
9 22 PRO/AM Teamwork Huff Motorsport — 409 laps — 2:36.523 147
Audi RS3 LMS DSG 58:24.906
TeamWork Motorsport Yan-He-Wei-Chuang
22:46:40.122
DNF 161.09 125.76
10 125 AM Bas Koeten Racing — 361 laps — 2:37.755 207
Audi RS3 LMS DSG 3:44.324
Bas Koeten Racing Au-Lo-Kwong-Tse
20:15:55.785
DNF 159.83 124.76
11 9 AM GDL team Australia — 356 laps — 2:36.947 3
Audi RS3 LMS DSG
GDL Racing Niall-Niall-Harvey-Penttinen-Clarke
23:05:44.006
160.66 107.96
12 2 AM Holmgaard Motorsport — 319 laps — 2:38.997 9
Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR DSG
Jonas Holmgaard Holmgaard-Holmgaard-Edland-Shepherd-Daniel
18:09:54.290
DNF 158.58 122.99
Not Classified
Classification limit (60% of 454 Laps) = 273 Laps
DNC 33 PRO/AM Wimmer Werk Motorsport Cupra TCR DSG — 225 laps — 2:37.621 171
Team Wimmer Werk Motorsport Benninger-V oithofer-Gross-Eder-Schöll
12:12:46.336
DNF 159.97 129.03
DNC 85 PRO/AM Vmax-Engineering Opel Astra TCR — 187 laps — 2:34.623 32
Charles Putman Putman-Espenlaub-Cho-Miller
13:37:08.251
DNF 163.07 96.17
DNC 54 AM Ferda A utosport By QSR Racing Audi RS3 LMS DSG — 127 laps — 27:42.089 2:38.269 36
Lance Bergstein Bergstein-Miller-Allen-Lagemann
6:59:06.591
DNF 159.31 127.34
DNC 853 AM Macau PS Racing Audi RS3 LMS DSG — 85 laps — 2:40.951 39
Ryan Wong Wong-Souza-Wong-Ng-Lam
10:56:04.979
DNF 156.66 54.44
DNC 175 PRO/AM NKPP Racing by Bas Koeten Racing Cupra TCR DSG — 27 laps — 2:39.136 25
Bas Koeten Racing Bessem-Hilders-van Lagen-Frankenhout
1:12:50.954
DNF 158.45 155.75
