CUPRA TCR cars finish 1-2 in the Mexico Endurance 24

The Centur-Silen Racing CUPRA Leon VZ of Luis Cervantes, Pablo Cervantes and Juan Pablo Sierra was the winner of the México Endurance 24 race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodrigues, final round of the Copa NotiAuto,

The race was dominated by the cars of the TCR class that filled the first seven positions in the final classification, with the Zanella Motors-Autoforum CUPRA Leon Competición in second position and the Apycsa Racing Team Audi RS 3 LMS in third.

The winning team adopted a cautious strategy throughout the race, running between the fifth and third positions while the battle for the lead eliminated the fastest cars. The Orea Ross Racing Hyundai Elantra N that Mikel Azcona had placed on pole position led for the first seven hours before losing 17 laps to replace the transmission; the Spaniard and his co-drivers Andrès Orea, Jerónimo Guzmán and Todd Sloan tried an impressive recovery until they were eliminated in a terrific crash with a slower car three hours before the end. The RE Racing Audi that Gerardo Nieto shared with Pablo, Ricardo and Andrès Pérez de Lara took over the lead until the 15^th hour before meeting with technical issues. For the following three hours the ProRally Mothers CUPRA Leon VZ of Gerardo, Julio and Rodrigo Rejón with Jorge Goeters led the field until they too dropped down with mechanical problems.

The Centur-Silen CUPRA moved into the lead and consistently pulled away during the last six hours, building up a three-lap lead over the Zanella Motors car that Santos, Franco and Santos jr. Zanella shared with Salvador de Alba, while the Apycsa Audi of Jorge and Yusif Abed, Omar Chávez and Rubén Rovelo completed the podium seven laps down, beating by only 11 seconds the Peralta Racing Team CUPRA Leon VZ of Michel Jourdain, Juan Carlos Peralta, Luis Díaz and Patrick Goeters that had survived a crash during the 21^st hour.

24H Hermanos Rodríguez

1. L. Cervantes/P. Cervantes/J.P. Sierra (Centur-Silen Racing, CUPRA Leon VZ), 655 laps
2. S. Zanella/S. Zanella jr./F. Zanella/S. de Alba (Zanella Motors-Autoforum, CUPRA Leon Competición), 652 laps
3. J. Abed/Y. Abed/O. Chávez/R. Rovelo (Apycsa Racing Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 647 laps

Picture: Copa NotiAuto