REC: First win of the season for the Balchug Racing team

On September 8, the AUTORADIO Grand Prix, the fourth and penultimate stage of the Russian Endurance Racing Series (REC) season, took place at the Moscow Raceway near Moscow.

There have been no rain races at the REC this year. Daylight hours are getting shorter, meaning the race started a few hours earlier than the usual summer evening time for a marathon. The heat was a test for the 30 cars in the peloton: there were many technical errors and problems, including a fire, and the safety car came out on track several times.

A flying start was given to cars from five classes, each of which fought for leadership in the overall standings and with rivals in their class. The main intrigue was expected in the battle for victory in the overall standings between three teams from different classes that participated in the race on Ligier sports prototypes and the Capital Racing Team on a Mercedes AMG-GT3. In addition, a new Russian car ROSSA GT LM from the GT class of the G-Drive Rossa Racing team was announced for participation in the race.

The pole was won for the second time in a row by Konstantin Tereshchenko at the wheel of the sports prototype #29 of Team Garis. After starting first, the Muscovite quickly started to increase his lead at the head of the pack, but after 15 minutes he made a pit stop to change drivers, and shortly after the team decided to end the fight earlier than planned.

A thrilling battle for the lead then unfolded between the other teams on Ligier – Black Thorn #111 and Balchug Racing #21. After Tereshchenko returned to the pits, the first position in the race was taken by Mikhail Loboda (Balchug Racing). However, the touring Audi got caught between the two prototypes on the climb to the treacherous Turn Eight of Moscow Raceway. And although Loboda was on the inside track, Efrosinin managed to overtake both the lapped car and his opponent on the outside radius.

And yet, the Black Thorn crew could not celebrate their third victory of the season. At the end of the first hour, Efrosinin’s Ligier started smoking, and then the engine caught fire. The fire brigade of the Moscow Autodrome worked quickly, but the race ended for the crew of No. 111 Black Thorn.

The lead went to Balchug Racing, which Mikhail Loboda and Kirill Kirakozov, avoiding problems and troubles, held until the finish, creating a comfortable lead of several laps over their nearest rivals. The problems of two other competitors in the battle for the overall leadership also played into the hands of crew #21: the teams AIMOL Racing and Capital Racing Team lost a lot of time in the pits due to technical problems.

The victory was the first this season for Balchug Racing, both in the overall standings of the REC Marathon and in the CN Pro class. Kirakozov and Loboda also became winners of the first stage of the Moscow Cup, which was played at this stage of the REC series.

There was serious competition between the teams of Mercedes, Toyota, BMW and Porsche in the GT class. This time the crews in the AMG GT4 were faster. Initially, the RSCar Motorsport team was confidently in the lead, but after a penalty and a collision with another car, Vladimir Dragunov, Renat Ibragimov and Vladimir Gurevich took only second place. The victory in the class (while retaining second place in the overall standings) was achieved by the duo Sergei Stolyarov and Viktor Shaitar in a Mercedes AMG from the Yadro Motorsport team.

In GT Pro, after the retirement of the Mercedes AMG GT 3 of Denis Remenyako and his new partner in this race, Alexander Smolyar, for the second time in a row, the crew of the Shishkoil team (GT Pro Touring subclass), Zakhar Slutsky, driving a Hyundai i30N TCR, driven by Dmitry Shishko, turned out to be the strongest in the class and the representative of Belarus Alexey Savin. They also took first place in the GT Pro Touring subscore.

Unfortunately, the Marussia GT of crew #7, which had shown a good time during practice, retired from the race, although the IYengineering & Mospolytech team brought the car back to the track three times during the race after minor defects.

It is notable that for the second time this season the ‘touring cars’ of the GT Pro sub-class are showing higher reliability than the more powerful and faster cars in the class.

In the GT Light class, the race was heading towards a confident victory for ObAgRa Racing, but due to an attacking mistake in the final part of the race, after which the car suffered serious damage, the main favorites of this class remained without a prize for the second time in a row. The first place was won, unexpectedly for many, by the Shonx team #85, consisting of Andrey Petukhov, Sergey Rozhkov and Tatyana Eliseeva. They brought the historic first victory in Russian racing to the Mini Cooper brand.

There was also some intrigue in the CN class, where an evenly matched battle between three teams played out on Shortcut. The lead first passed to one team and then to the other, but in the end, despite a mid-race breakdown and repairs, Sun Zorro #99 celebrated its second straight win, where Artemy Akimenkov raced alongside Maxim. Sunyaev.

Unfortunately, this REC round did not see the debut of the #26 G-Drive Rossa Racing ROSSA LM GT of Roman Rusinov. The team passed the administrative checks and was on the eligible list, but Roman withdrew the car from the race.

The team explained the decision as follows: “This morning Roman Rusinov took the difficult but considered decision to postpone the debut of the all-new Rossa LM GT race car, which was scheduled for the fourth round of the Russian REC Endurance Series.

When we start, we always aim to fight for the top positions, but new technology requires extra time to refine and realise the full potential of the car.

That’s why we decided to skip the race today, but we will do our best to be fully prepared to go out on track.”

Anastasia BendikovaGeneral Organizer of the Russian Endurance Racing Series: “Today’s stage was a test for the teams. Many cars were damaged, we as organizers can only hope that the teams will repair them in three weeks for the REC final. As for ROSSA, I can say that in life as well as in racing you need to be prepared for retirement. This is an integral part of the sport, which increases interest in it.”

The final stage of the Russian circuit racing series season will take place at Moscow Raceway – the last race will take place on October 5. Tickets are already on sale.

Winners and runners-up of the Autoradio Grand Prix

Moscow Cup

1. BALCHUG Racing (Kirill Kirakozov, Mikhail Loboda)

2. YADRO MOTORSPORT (Sergej Stolyarov, Victor Shaitar)

3. RSCar Motorsport (Dragunov Vladimir, Ibragimov Renat, Gurevich Vladimir)

CN

1. SUN ZORRO (Sunyaev Maxim, Akimenkov Artemy)

2. RATATA Racing (Gantmakher Efim, Galakhov Alexander, Lebedev Roman)

3. HOGO – AZDRIVE (Gerasimov Ivan, Parshutin Pavel, Zakharov Kirill)

GT light

1. SHONX (Andrey Petukhov, Tatyana Eliseeva, Sergey Rozhkov)

2. ARENA RACING TEAM (Vladimir Menshikov, Artem Sidorets)

3. Heritage Motorsport (Prahov Vsevolod, Titov Alexander, Kvashnin Konstantin)

GT

1. YADRO MOTORSPORT (Sergej Stolyarov, Victor Shaitar)

2. RSCar Motorsport (Dragunov Vladimir, Ibragimov Renat, Gurevich Vladimir)

3. Sportcar Racing Team (Ivan Shcherbakov, Vitaly Larionov)

GT Pro and GT Pro Touring

1. SHYSHKOIL (Shishko Dmitry, Slutsky Zakhar, Savin Alexey)

2. Kamenskiy Racing (Dmitry Gomelkov, Vsevolod Prakhov, Ivan Stanchin)

3. DRTeam (Alexey Denisov, Evgeniy Chikinev, Anastasia Mikhailus)

CN Pro

1. BALCHUG Racing (Kirill Kirakozov, Mikhail Loboda)

2. AIMOL Racing (Khairov Alexey, Ievlev Sergey)

3. SPORTS AND SAFETY FAMILY (Frolov Nikita, Kharchenko Semyon, Tverdokhlebov Ivan)

Absolute classification

1. BALCHUG Racing (Kirill Kirakozov, Mikhail Loboda)