Flying Finn Konsta Lappalainen drove divided season 2023 in international GT World Challenge Sprint Racing series. In final weekend of the series, which was driven in Dutch circuit of Zandvoort, Lappalainen and his italian team mate Giacomo Altoe collect also divided results.
In Saturdays’ one hour event the Emil Frey Racing duo finished the event in 10th and in Sundays’ race they arrived to chequerred flag in 5th position in overall standings. As they collect only few points for the Championship series, they mad to satisfy for 7th position in PRO-group overall standings.
– In Zandvoort the weather varied a lot from dry to wet and back to dry. These highly demanding and tricky conditions delivered us so big challenge that the podium positions were denied from us also in this weekend. Therefore the best result for us in 10 events was silver position in second round which was driven in italian circuit of Misano, Lappalainen tells.
– All five intense racing weekends we drove this season were pretty much similar than this final Zandvoort weekend; Sometimes we did better and sometimes worse. During the season we made small but still very conclusive mistakes and therefore the highly desired results were unaccomplished and 7th position in overall standings is a big disapointment. However we learnt a lot of competing with this new Ferrari 296 GT3 car and in forthcoming season my goal is to utilize these studies, Lappalainen continues.
Final weekend of the GT World Challenge Sprint series was a show of italian Mattia Drudi and his swiss team mate Ricardo Feller. As Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II duo won both rounds, they also collect the title of the sprint series PRO-Cup. Italian nine-times Moto-GP Champion Valentino Rossi also drove a divided season which he finished into podium position.
In Zandvoort racing weekend there was also another Finnish driver measuring his skills. In Silver category Jesse Salmenautio collect two podium positions.
Final results GT World Challenge Sprint, Zandvoort Saturday 14th October 2023, Overall Top-3:
1. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (CHE), Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, 32 laps
2. Alberto Costa (ESP) & Thierry Vermeulen (NDL), Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, +1,020s
3. Valentino Rossi (ITA) & Maxime Martin (BEL), BMW M4 GT3, +2,451s
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10. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoe (ITA), Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, +14.942s
Final results GT World Challenge Sprint, Zandvoort Sunday 15th October 2023, Overall Top-3:
1. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (CHE), Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, 29 laps
2. Charles Weerts (BEL) & Dries Vanthoor (BEL), BMW M4 GT3, +3,563s
3. Niklas Krütten (GER) & Calan Williams (GBR), BMW M4 GT3, +10,424s
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5. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoe (ITA), Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, +16.693s
GT World Challenge Sprint FINAL standings (10/10 rounds), PRO-cup, Top-3:
1. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (CHE), 109,5p
2. Raffaele Marciello (SUI) & Timur Boguslavskiy (ANA), 90,5p
3. Charles Weerts (BEL) & Dries Vanthoor (BEL), 86,5p
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7. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoe (ITA), 41p
Images from GT World Challenge Sprint Zandvoort 2023:
