LMS Racing’s Cupra TCR wins the 12H Imola
Only two weeks after their victory in the TCR class at the Nürburgring 24 hours, Antti Buri and Olli Kangas have won the 12H Imola, third round of the 24H TCE Series.
The race was split in two parts, four hours on Friday and eight hours on Saturday.
The Modena Motorsports Cupra (Wayne Shen/John Shen/Francis Tjia/Mathias Beche) had set pole position and finished the first part of the race in first position, beating by 45 seconds the Red Camel-Jordans.nl SEAT León (Ivo Breukers/Rik Breukers) that had led for most of the four hours. The NKPP Racing by Bas Koeten Cupra DSG (Gijs Bessem/Harry Hilders) was classified third ahead of the LMS Racing by Bas Koeten Cupra DSG of Buri and Kangas.
The Finnish duo dominated the second part of the race, building a comfortable margin of seven laps. “It was a tough one,” explained Buri. “It was big effort from the team because this was not easy. There was a lot of Code 60s and a lot of spinning cars on-track, and I’m just so happy we made it through!”
The sister car run under the NKPP Racing banner claimed second place when Hilders overtook the Modena Motorsports Cupra of John Shen on the penultimate lap; the final gap between the two teams was of 3.8 seconds only.
The early leader Red Camel-Jordans.nl SEAT was plagued by intermittent gearbox issues and was classified fifth, behind the Holmgaard Motorsport Volkswagen Golf GTI DSG (Magnus Holmgaard/Jonas Holmgaard/Roy Edland/Jens Mølgaard).
The 24H TCE Series will resume with the 24H Portimão on July 6th to 8th.
