REC: The marathon at St. Petersburg went well

The third leg of the Russian endurance racing series took place on the last Saturday of July as part of the Garage Fest festival at the Igora Drive circuit.

The four-hour marathon, which attracted a record number of participants, was eventful and kept countless spectators in suspense from start to finish.

39 teams took part in qualifying and 37 cars from five different classes took part in the race. The battle was expected to be exciting, and the weather added to the intrigue when it started to rain just before the start of the warm-up lap.

Everyone started on slicks, but the asphalt became wetter and wetter. After a few spins and crashes, many decided to switch to rain tires. However, some crews risked staying on slicks – and this decision proved to be the right one. After a while, the precipitation stopped and under the hot July sun, the asphalt started to dry out quickly – we had to go back to the pitlane for slicks.

This situation gave confident leadership to the crew of TeamGaris 29, who were competing for the first time in the Ligier JS 53 evo prototype. The experienced Konstantin Tereshchenko, who started from pole, mastered his aerobatics on the wet track and took the lead while many competitors came into the pits.

However, TeamGaris 29 failed to hold on to first place all the way to the finish. Despite five pit stops, three of which were mandatory, the Black Thorn crew on the Norma M20 prototype managed to take the lead – and with a lap advantage, Georgy Efrosinin and Igor Mukhin took their second REC victory of the season after success in the first stage near Moscow.

Tereshchenko, along with Konstantin Zakharevsky and Stanislav Sidoruk, eventually took second place, giving TeamGaris 29 a podium in the debut race on the new technology. The top three finishers in CN Pro were completed by the Aimol Racing crew of Alexey Chernov and Alexey Khairov.

Before the start, the team G-Drive Racing was considered the favorite, in which Kirill Kirakozov was paired with Roman Rusinov. The team set the best time in the qualification, but it was canceled due to violation of the red flags.

This threw G-Drive Racing to the back of the grid, but the race still had to start from the pit lane – the crew did not have time to leave within the allotted time for the pre-start procedure.

Rusinov and Kirakozov made a nice breakthrough, but due to gearbox problems and necessary repairs they were ultimately unable to reach the podium.

Other favorites were waiting for failure: crew #13 of Denis Remenyako and Ivan Samarin of Capital Racing Team. The team was aiming to win the overall classification with two crews (#131 and #13), but the retirement of the #131 Mercedes-AMG GT4 in the first laps and the collision of the #13 Mercedes-AMG GT3 with a lapped Seat not only ruined the chances of a repeat of last year’s triumph, but also of a podium finish in the top GT Pro class.

As a result, the unpredictable race in this class ended with the success of the teams participating in the GT Pro Touring subclass. The sensational victory was celebrated by the crew of the Shishkoil team, driven by Dmitry Shishko, Zakhar Slutsky and the Belarusian representative Alexey Savin at the wheel of the Hyundai i30N TCR.

In the GT class, the experienced crew of Rinat Salikhov and Sergei Borisov in the Mercedes-AMG GT4 of the Yadro Motorsport team proved to be the strongest, despite the difficulties at the start of the marathon. At the same time, they also finished third in the overall standings.

In GT Light, the winning streak of the ObAgRa Racing Team was interrupted, which this time did not even make it into the top three. The Classic Car Racing crew in a BMW 320 took advantage of the failure of the favorites more than others – Evgeniy Trushin, Ivan Vershinin and Maxim Gordyushkin became co-authors of the victory.

There was also a sensation in the CN class: the new Sun Zorro team celebrated well-deserved successes in an eventful race. The team’s ShortCut car was driven by father and son Sunyaev – Yuri and Maxim.

Participants in the marathon. Photo: Yevgeny Safronov

Anastasia BendikovaGeneral Organizer of REC: “Last year we dreamed of seeing forty teams at the start. And this happened at Igora Drive, we received forty applications, although for technical reasons not all of them went directly to the start of the race.

The long peloton is a new challenge for us and for the competitors. Now we have seen the real “Big Race” and we are waiting for its repeat on September 8 at the Moscow Raceway.”

Alexey TitovGeneral Director of Igora Drive Autodrome: “The Russian Endurance Challenge is a spectacular race that is worth seeing with your own eyes. A four-hour marathon, uncompromising battle, fierce cars and intrigues in the battle for the final victory will bring unique colors and good mood to the entire motorsport weekend.

The last leg marked the equator of the season and a new, important event for motorsport: 39 teams were allowed to participate in the race, which has never happened before in the series. These figures immediately indicate that endurance racing is becoming increasingly popular, not only among spectators, but also among drivers and racing teams. And I hope that there will be more races of this format in the future.”

Award ceremony. Photo: Yevgeny Safronov

Results of the 3rd stage of REC 2024

Absolute classification

1. No. 111 BlackThorn (Efrosinin Georgy, Mukhin Igor)
2. No. 29 TEAMGARIS (Zakharevsky Konstantin, Sidoruk Stanislav, Tereshchenko Konstantin)
3. No. 88 YADRO Motorsport (Rinat Salikhov, Sergey Borisov)

GT Pro class and Touring subclass

1. No. 123 SHISHKOIL (Dmitry Shishko, Zakhar Slutsky, Alexey Savin)
2. No. 55 Kamenskiy Racing (Ivan Stanchin, Dmitry Gomelkov, Vsevolod Prakhov)
3. No. 10 DRTeam (Alexey Denisov, Evgeniy Chikinev, Anastasia Mikhailus, Artem Slutsky)

GT Light class

1. No. 92 ClassicCarRacing (Trushin Evgeniy, Vershinin Ivan, Gordyushkin Maxim)
2. No. 53 MAZDA KARTING ACADEMY (Smirnov Valery, Baldin Sergey, Gribanov Alexey)
3. No. 12 Heritage Motorsport (Evtukh Anton, Tolstobrov Nikolay, Rybkin Anton, Krapivtsev Ivan)

GT class

1. No. 88 YADRO Motorsport (Rinat Salikhov, Sergey Borisov)
2. No. 17 Rally Academy (Ilya Gorbatsky, Alexey Nesov)
3. No. 37 ISKRA Motorsport (Solukovtsev Andrey, Menshikov Vladimir)

CN Pro Class

1. No. 111 BlackThorn (Efrosinin Georgy, Mukhin Igor)
2. No. 29 TEAMGARIS (Zakharevsky Constant, Sidoruk Stanislav, Tereshchenko Konstantin)
3. No. 31 AIMOL Racing (Chernov Alexey, Khairov Alexey)

Class CN

1.№99 SUN ZORRO (Sunyaev Yuri, Sunyaev Maxim)
2. Lap time race No. 67 (Skorik Maxim, Ilyichev Valentin, Tolstoguzov Artem, Vinopal Alexander)
3. Lap time race No. 52 (Damir Saitov, Mikhail Maleev, Roman Mavlanov, Sergey Chukanov)

Source: F1 News

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