GT1 World, Navarra - Qualifying Race Report

Stef Dusseldorp and Frederic Makowiecki won the Qualifying Race at Navarra and gave McLaren its first victory with the MP4-12C GT3. The Hexis Racing duo dominated the first race of the FIA ??GT1 World Championship race weekend in Spain. It was also  the first victory for a McLaren sportscar since 2001.

Darryl O'Young was unable to convert his pole position into a win for Reiter Engineering. The Canadian-born Chinese driver was overtaken by the Hexis Racing McLaren of Alvaro Parente. Parente disappeared on the horizon, leaving the rest of the field far behind. After suffering a technical problem in qualifying the other Hexis Racing McLaren had to start from the back of the grid, which resulted in Stef Dusseldorp having just one goal: to overtake as many cars before the mandatory pitstop.

Dusseldorp did just that and at the end of the first lap he was already up into eleventh position, after eight laps he had fought his way into the top six and into the fifteenth lap of the race he passed the Lamborghini of Darryl O'Young and put his McLaren in second position.

A quick mandatory stop allowed Frédéric Makowiecki to continue Dusseldorp's work. Makowiecki was faster than teammate Gregoire Demoustier and with just under fifteen minutes remaining in the race Makowiecki had closed the gap and made the pass to take the lead. The two Hexis Racing McLaren MP4-12C GT3's were in a league of their own and went on to clinch a double victory at the Navarra circuit. Makowiecki eventually finished almost four seconds ahead of Demoustier.

The Vita4One Racing Team BMW Z4 GT3 of Michael Bartels and Yelmer Buurman took third place. A surprisingly good result for the German team, which had started from the pit after suffering problems just before the start of the race. Buurman pushed his car to the limit and only made his stop just before the end of the pit window. A decent pitstop by the Vita4One Racing Team pit crew helped Bartels to rejoin the race just in front of the two All-Inkl.com Mercedes.

Bartels managed to keep them behind and finished in third place, 22 seconds behind the race winner. Peter Kox did whatever he could to get back into the top three, but despite passing the Mercedes of Pastorelli and Basseng he was unable to beat Bartels and finished in fourth place, just a second behind the German.