The first leg of REC was held at the Moscow Raceway

On July 24, a four-hour race was held at the Moscow Raceway circuit near Moscow – the first leg of the Russian Endurance Challenge 2022 series. 20 crews (43 pilots in total, four pilots) started in four classes: CN Sport Prototype, CN 1.6 Sport Prototype, GT Pro and GT. Warm weather has become a real test for pilots and equipment.

The current race was the first “combat journey” for two promising projects:

BR-03 of the BR Engineering team, which brought together the most amazing line-up of entrants under its banner: two ex-Formula 1 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin, 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Viktor Shaitar, and Mikhail Aleshin, the only Russian who participated in the Indycar.

Marussia B1 GT IY Engineering team, which was represented by Vitaly Larionov (25 years old, Moscow).

Qualification, combined with training at this stage, was won by crew No. 28, who performed on the sports prototype Ligier 53 with a score of 1,33,884. Then there are two more Mercedes (No. 4 from the Yadro Motorsport team and No. 13 from the Capital Racing Team) and two BR-03 prototypes – No. 17 and No. 11.

As a rule, in “long” races it is rarely necessary to observe a personal fight between pilots. Too much is determined by gear training level, refueling tactics and rider switching. But the race at Moscow Raceway turned out to be bright and very eventful, including rivalry between the drivers.

It was clear from the first corner that it was going to be a battle. Sergei Stolyarov, who plays for Yadro Motorsport, started so famously that he almost crashed right after the start. This time, however, there were no contacts.

The highlight of the first laps was the battle between the two crews of BR Engineering and Ligier No. 28 of the Blackthorn team (pilots Igor Mukhin and Yegor Efrosinin). Ligier, then driven by Yegor, was caught between two BR-03 prototypes in the first corner after the incident. For more than a dozen laps, Egor desperately attacked the opponent driving in front (No. 17, Viktor Shaitar was driving at the time), sometimes outside the limits of reason and risking a collision. In the end, this disappointed him: after another such reckless attack, he made a mistake, which Vitaly Petrov (No. 11) did not fail to take advantage of, and now Vitaly fell under the attacks of the persistent Ligier pilot. This trio kept the crowd in suspense until the first pit stops.

The race was interrupted three times by the safety car exit. The most spectacular episode took place at the start of the second hour, when a wheel came off the Marussia GT (No. 7) at full speed. Later it turned out that it was poorly secured. The pilot’s credit for minimizing potential damage and avoiding contact with the bump stop: the car got stuck in the gravel. However, after spending about forty minutes in the pits, the car returned to the track and Vitaly Larionov was even able to climb the podium. This is what distinguishes “long” races.

The main battle for victory in the absolute unfolded between two Mercedes No. 13 of the Capital Racing Team (driver Denis Remenyako) and No. 4 of the Yadro Motorsport team (pilot Sergey Stolyarov), as well as two prototypes from BR Engineering ( no. 17 and no. 11).

Here everything was determined by the tactics of refueling and switching pilots. Denis Remenyako proved more successful and tactically competent in this ‘solitaire’ of pit stops. The Capital Racing Team clearly worked out the tactical component of the race, refueling and tire changes in a timely manner. But the enthusiasm of Sergei Stolyarov played a cruel joke with him. For various violations, the driver got no less than 4 (!) passes through the pit lane, and this ultimately did not allow him to intervene in the battle for the victory in the race.

In the GT class, the end came less than 15 minutes before the end of the race when the number 26 BMW entered the pits with a flat tyre. An unfortunate puncture in the closing laps robbed the crew of Marat Khairov and Gabriele Pian from second in class: during the tire change another BMW managed to get ahead of them – with start number 98 (Time4bmw, drivers Oleg Semenov and Egor Orudzhev). They were separated by just over 30 seconds at the finish.

A fierce battle unfolded in the CN 1.6 Sport Prototype class, which was based on Shortcut cars. The fights in this category were especially “spicy” due to the fact that there were girls in the two stated crews – rather experienced Tatyana Dobrynina in the crew No. 44 (the “Race and Point” team) and her younger “colleague” Olga Zinchenko from DK YMT Team – Your Marketing Team on Shortcut No. 1. The main battle in this class was between crews No. 88 (AZDRIVE SOUND C team) and No. 44 mentioned above. tactics – first place went to the “Race and Punt” team.

Also in the context of the stage, the Moscow Championship was played in “long” races. The victory in this classification was won by crew No. 17, who took part in the prototype BR-03. Second place went to crew No. 11 of Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov, and third place went to the crew of Ligier # 28 – Igor Mukhin and Yegor Efrosinin.

Denis Remenyako, winner of the race in the general classification: “It was physically very hard to sit behind the wheel for 4 hours. The hardest part was to maintain maximum concentration at the end of the race, when it was already dark, and not give in to emotions. In the first corner I avoided a collision with an opponent who entered the corner very risky. I had to brake to the ground, I essentially sacrificed the first part of the race, but kept the car, and this allowed me to reach the finish calmly and in a good mood.

Sergey Sirotkin, CN Sport Prototype winner: “It was a rushed race for us. It wasn’t entirely clear how the car would behave in “combat” conditions, for example we had no fuel consumption data, as this was in fact the first long stretch we drove this car. We didn’t know how much fuel we had to save to get to the finish. So we had to improvise. But we’re here – and this is the most important thing. We completed the task set for the race with five plus – we showed the car in all its glory, tested it in combat conditions and achieved an excellent result. ”

Igor Ermilin, head of the REC organizing committee, the ideological inspirer and chief designer of the Marussia GT project: “I am very happy with how the car went, showed good time in qualifying and I felt confident on the track. The team has young guys, students who started preparing for the race about three weeks ago, so mistakes could not be avoided. But they work selflessly and the experience they gain is great. Yes, there was a problem, the wheel was not repaired, which caused the accident, the car was damaged, but we fixed it pretty quickly and after that it ran 60 laps with a good time. And the podium in the first race, when the first two places are taken by Mercedes, which the group has been preparing for the highest level races for years, is a great achievement.”

Not without incident, when forty minutes before the finish in the dark a brave hare “travels” across the track.

Igor Konovaloc, race director: “We noticed him in the fourth corner, then he ran to the third corner, crossed the track in front of one of the competitors’ Mercedes and went into the crevice of the service road. Furthermore, his track was lost… But he ended up in the track and apparently crossed it again via the return line.

Race results

GT Pro Class

1. Capital Racing Team (No. 13, Denis Remenyako) – 136 laps
2. Yadro Motorsport (No. 4, Sergey Stolyarov) – 133 laps
3. IY Engineering (No. 7, Vitaly Larionov) – 83 laps

CN class

1. BR Engineering 17 (No. 17, Viktor Shaitar, Sergey Sirotkin) – 133 laps
2. BR Engineering 11 (No. 11, Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov) – 133 laps
3. Blackthom (No. 28, Igor Mukhin, Egor Efrosinin) – 132 laps

GT class

1. Motor Sharks (No. 83, Anton Nemkin, Ivan Lukashevich) – 130 laps
2. Time4bmw (No. 98, Oleg Semenov, Egor Orudzhev) – 128 laps
3. APRTeam (No. 26, Marat Khayrov, Gabriele Piana) – 128 laps

Class CN 1.6

1. Race and Point (No. 44, Vadim Vereshchagin, Tatyana Dobrynina, Dmitry Solovov, Ivan Pugachev) – 103 Laps
2. AZDRIVE SOUND C (№88, Artem Viktorov, Alexander Butslov, Kirill Zakharov) – 101 laps
3. DK YMT (No. 1, Olga Zinchenko, Stanislav Burmistrov, Alexander Galakhov) – 93 laps

Absolute ranking

1. Capital Racing Team (Denis Remenyako) – 136 laps
2. BR Engineering 17 (No. 17, Viktor Shaitar, Sergey Sirotkin) – 133 laps
3. Yadro Motorsport (No. 4, Sergey Stolyarov) – 133 laps

Moscow Championship

1. BR Engineering 17 (No. 17, Viktor Shaitar, Sergey Sirotkin) – 133 laps
2. BR Engineering 11 (No. 11, Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov) – 133 laps
3. Blackthom (No. 28, Igor Mukhin, Egor Efrosinin) – 132 laps

Reference

Russian Endurance Challenge (REC) is an endurance race type competition, with the distinguishing features being long distance (the race lasts 4 hours or more) and pilot changes during the race.

In its current format, endurance races have been held in Russia since 2015. The Russian endurance rules allow to participate in the race for cars of different classes: from sporty prototypes and GT cars to highly democratic cars of the national class and timeless classics. The winners will be determined both in the general classification and in the classes.

This year the number of stages has been expanded to four. In addition to the Moscow Raceway, competitions will also be held on Igora Drive near St. Petersburg (August 7), Kazan-Ring (September 24) and Sochi Autodrom (October 23).