Reigning bronze medalist of ADAC GT Masters and GT World Challenge Endurance, Flying Finn Konsta Lappalainen, age of 21, showed again his talent in first weekend of season 2023 which was driven in traditional circuit of british Brands Hatch. In two intense one hour races Konsta Lappalainen and his italian team mate Giacomo Altoè drove for podium positions with their brand new Ferrari 488 GT3 car. However small driving mistakes in circuit as well as slow pit stops costs lots of valuable time and therefore they finished the first race in fifth and second in eight position in overall classifications.
– Due brand new Ferrari 488 GT3 car we had no idea of our speed in the circuit. However our strong pace in qualifying told us that we would be very competitive in the races and even we drove quite near perfect stints and we’re able to make very nice passes we still lost the podium positions in poor pit stops. However now we know that when we improve our performance in pit stops we won’t get stuck in traffic and are able to compete for podium positions, Lappalainen tells.
– Despite a small dissapointment we still had a very positive weekend. In races we were fastest car in Emil Frey Racing and fastest car in the circuit in final laps. Now in next four weeks we analyze the mistakes and then try again in next round which is to be driven in the middle of June at italian circuit of Misano, Lappalainen continues.
The star of the weekend was italian nine times MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi and his belgium team mate Maxime Martin as they collect their first-ever overall podium in GT World Challenge racing series. After two rounds Lappalainen and Altoè are in sixth position in Championship standings.
Final results GT World Challenge Europe Sprint, Brands Hatch #1, Sunday 14th May 2023: Overall Top-3:
1. Raffaele Marchiello (CHE) & Timur Boguslavskiy (ANA), Mercedes-AMG GT3, 42 laps
2. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (SUI), Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, +0,616s
3. Charles Weerts (BEL) & Dries Vanthoor (BEL), BMW M4 GT3, +3,683s
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5. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoè (ITA), Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, +28,251s
Final results GT World Challenge Europe Sprint, Brands Hatch #2, Sunday 14th May 2023: Overall Top-3:
1. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (SUI), Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, 41 laps
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) & Maxime Martin (BEL), BMW M4 GT3, +3,769s
3. Charles Weerts (BEL) & Dries Vanthoor (BEL), BMW M4 GT3, +4,659s
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8. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoè (ITA), Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, +34,583s
GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Championship standings 2023: Overall top-3:
1. Mattia Druidi (ITA) & Ricardo Feller (SUI), 28,5p
2. Raffaele Marchiello (CHE) & Timur Boguslavskiy (ANA), 22p
3. Charles Weerts (BEL) & Dries Vanthoor (BEL), 19p
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6. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Giacomo Altoè (ITA), 8p
Images from Brands Hatch event
