Finnish racing driver Konsta Lappalainen, who has became the top driver in international GT car racing series in the current competition season, continued his impressive results in the fourth racing weekend of the GT World Challenge Endurance racing series, which was driven at the German Hockenheimring.
In intensive three hours racing Konsta Lappalainen and his Austrian team mate Mich Wishofer and South-African team mate Stuart White collect impressive win Silver Cup victory. In overall classifications they were 7th fastest among 49 fellow competitors.
Lappalainen kept 7th fastest pace in qualifyings and as furthermore his team mates also managed to drive superb performance in qualifyings, Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo started the three hours endurance race from 11th position.
Konsta started the race, which was driven in dry summer conditions, and made nearly a perfect one hour stint as he was able to collect seven positions. As also his fellow team mates drove nearly their maximum performance, Emil Frey Racing drivers collect the Silver Cup victory by 4,458 seconds gap to silver and 5,684 seconds gap to bronze position drivers. Due full Championship points Konsta Lappalainen and Stuart White rised into third position in series standings as there are still final round to be driven.
– It was a perfect weekend from qualifyings to highest podium position. It’ll be very difficult to find improvements and therefore there aren’t anymore many steps to the group of fastest professional racing drivers. We’ve done lots of work on analysing the mistakes we’ve previously done. As now we didn’t make a single mistake, the result was more than we had hoped for, shared Lappalainen his thoughts.
– In qualifyings we noticed that in this 4,5 kilometres circuit one second gap for pole position driver would have delivered 30th starting position. We collect 11th. Then we drove three hours as fast as we ever could and after 101 laps all Silver Cup podium position teams were in 5,684 seconds margin. These facts tells a lot how insanely competitive this series is. Therefore 7th position in overall and Silver Cup victory was definitely one of the best results in my long motorsport career, Lappalainen continues.
Final round of GT World Challenge Endurance racing series is to be driven in final weekend of September at Iberian circuit of Barcelona. Konsta Lappalainen and Stuart White are driving for silver medal of the series as the their fellow rivals Thomas Neubauer, Benjamin Goethe and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer secured their Championship title.
Another Finn Patrick Kujala suffered a dissapointing weekend as his team finished the event in 29th position in overall and 11th in Silver Cup. Next round for Konsta Lappalainen is in two weeks at ADAC GT Masters Sachesnring racing weekend. Finn is in silver position in juniors standings as there are still four events to be driven.
Final results GT World Challenge Endurance Hockenheimring 2022: Silver Cup, Top-5:
1. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Mick Wishofer (AUT) & Stuart White (RSA), Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, 101 laps
2. Marius Zug (GER) & Nicolas Schöll (GER) & Alex Aka (GER), Audi R8 LMS Evo II GT3, +4,458s
3. Thomas Neubauer (FRA) & Benjamin Goethe (POL) & Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer (FRA), Audi R8 LMS Evo II GT3, +5,684s
4. Aurelien Panis (FRA) & Cesar Gazeau (FRA) & Nicolas Baert (GER), Audi R8 LMS Evo II GT3, +5,684s
5. Al Faisal Al Zubair (OMA) & Axcil Jefferies (ZIM) & Fabian Schiller (GER), Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo, +15,534s
GT World Challenge Endurance 2022 standings 4/5 rounds: Silver Cup: Top-5
1. Thomas Neubauer (FRA) & Benjamin Goethe (POL) & Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer (FRA), 100p
2. Nicolas Schöll (AUT) & Alex Aka (GER) & Marius Zug (GER), 68p
3. Konsta Lappalainen (FIN) & Stuart White (SFA), 58p
4. Al Faisal Al Zubair (OMA) & Axcil Jefferies (ZIM) & Fabian Schiller (GER), 54p
5. Tuomas Tujula (FIN), 33p
