The Red Camel-Jordans.nl CUPRA TCR DSG (#101, Ivo Breukers / Steven Liquorish / Jerimy Daniel / Jean-Francois Hevey) continues to lead the TCE division at this year’s 24H COTA USA after meticulously working its way through the field from the back of the grid.
The Dutch TCR team has so far completed 251 laps of the 5.513km Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, with 13 hours of the race still to be run from Sunday morning onwards.
“I have to say the drivers have been doing a great job and I’m really proud of them,” team stalwart Rik Breukers explained to radiolemans.com’s Joe Bradley. “Strategy has worked well for us too, and we were a little lucky with the Code 60s. You really need to take advantage of those when they arise, and that’s helped us pull a gap to P2. Hopefully we can hold on to that tomorrow.”
The lead in TCE had originally been fought out between the pole sitting MONLAU COMPETICION Cupra TCR DSG (#107, Stuart Hall / Christopher Kemp / David Tinn / Tom Black) and the TOPCAR sport by Bas Koeten Racing CUPRA TCR DSG (#131, Fabian Danz / Antti Buri / Kari-Pekka Laaksonen / Ronny Jost) during the opening stages of the event. Both, however, would suffer problems and drop back through the field, allowing Red Camel-Jordans.nl to emulate its recent TCR SPA 500 form and hit the front.
TOPCAR sport by Bas Koeten Racing now lies 5th after suffering an electrical problem, while MONLAU COMPETICION has dropped to 6th following brief contact with the CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#114, Lukas Desserich / Stefan Tanner / Yannick Mettler / Christoph Ulrich / Jérôme Ogay) is running 2nd at the Circuit of the Americas. Having already secured this year’s 24H SERIES Europe Overall TCE Teams’ championship, the sister Volkswagen (#112, Jérôme Ogay / Constantin Kletzer / Roberto Ferri / Alberto Vescovi / Yannick Mettler) lies 4th in TCE.
The AC Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS (#188, Stephane Perrin / Vincent Radermecker / Matthew Taskinen / Will Neal) currently holds the final spot on the TCE podium, a worthy potential reward after a difficult season for the Belgian team.
The Sorg Rennsport BMW M240i Racing Cup (#851, Benito Tagle / Michael Nielsen / Frank S. Woody III / Johan Schwartz) lies 7th overall in the TCE standings and 1st in CUP1. The Atlanta Speedwerks Honda Civic FK7 TCR meanwhile (#126, Brian Henderson / Taylor Hagler / Barry Boes / Todd Lamb) has already retired from the event. Despite running 3rd in the TCE division in the early stages, the American team’s race was brought to an end after just 29 laps with terminal engine failure.
The remaining 13 hours of this year’s 2019 24H COTA USA will begin tomorrow at 08.00 hrs local time at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.