FIA GT3, Adria.

Adria was not as kind to the new Audi R8 LMS as Silverstone had been and the Ingolstadt racer didn’t feature in either of the 2 races, a highest finish of 9th overall being somewhat disappointing.
Porsche’s fortunes had gone the other way since Silverstone with the 911 GT3 Cup S showing ever greater pace. The number 12 car Prospeed car of Niki Lanik and Geoffroy Horion claimed a hard fought 4th overall in the first race of the weekend with the Trackspeed GT3 Cup S of Tim Sugden and David Ashburn claiming 4th in race 2. Lanik and Horion kept up their strong performance and finished 6th in race 2.
Alpina also saw an improved performance from their B6 GT3 with Claudia Hürtgen and Csaba Walter claiming an impressive 5th overall in race 1. Their race 2 result was not quite what the team would have wanted as they struggled home in 12th place.

ADAC Zurich 24 Hours, Nürburgring.

This year’s Nürburgring 24 hour race saw a historical achievement as the Manthey Porsche {link} team claimed its 4th successive victory.
After a race long battle with the Abt Audi R8 LMS the Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Marcel Tiemann Porsche 911 GT3 RSR came home with a winning margin of 1 lap.
Behind the Christian Abt, Jean-Francois Hemroulle, Pierre Kaffer, Lucas Luhr Audi R8 LMS of came another Manthey prepared car, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S car of Emmanuel Collard, Wolf Henzler, Richard Lietz and Dirk Werner. Uwe Alzen, Sascha Bert, Lance David Arnold and Christopher Mies finished 4th in their Porsche 997 GT3 Cup with the Phoenix Racing Audi A8 LMS of Marc Basseng, Marcel Fässler, Mike Rockenfeller and Frank Stippler rounding out the top 5.
Volkswagen scored an impressive 17th overall with their natural gas powered Scirocco as well as a class win and 15th overall with their petrol powered version.

ALMS Miller Motorsports Park.

GT2 in the Utah Grand Prix, second round of the ALMS {link} was very much a Porsche benefit as the Jörg Bergmeister / Patrick Long Flying Lizard Motorsports {link} Porsche 911 GT3 RSR took a dominant 74 second victory from the Farnbacher Loles Racing {link} 911 GT3 RSR of Marc Lieb and Wolf Henzler. Porsches also finished 5th (Johannes Stuck / Nicky Pastorelli – VICI Racing {link}) and 6th (Johannes van Overbeek / Seth Nieman – Flying Lizard Motorsports) in GT2.
BMW’s E92 M3s, run by Rahal Letterman Racing {link}, finished 8th and 9th in GT2 showing increased performance and better reliability.

Winners of the Challenge class in their Snow Motorsport run Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car were husband and wife team Martin and Melanie Snow.

FIA GT3

The FIA GT3 Championship {link} got underway at Silverstone with 2 races that saw impressive results for all 3 German manufacturers, especially the 2 who were debuting their cars.

Silverstone saw Team Rosberg {link} and Phoenix Racing {link} debut a pair of brand new Audi R8 LMS' each with impressive results. Team Rosberg's Nicolas Armindo and Cesar Campanico had the slightly better races claiming an impressive brace of 3rd positions (and claiming the R8 LMS' first podium finish in GT3) whilst Phoenix Racing's Christopher Haase and Chritsopher Mies claimed 2nd overall in race 2 after finishing an extremely disappointing 26th overall in race 1.

Mühlner Motorsport {link} Porsche's 997 GT3 Cup S narrowly missed out on podium positions with a 5th place finish in race 1 followed up by 6th in race 2, the Tim Bergmeister / Jaromir Jirik GT3 Cup S car did however manage to claim fastest overall race lap in race 2.

Alpina BMW {link} debuted their B6 GT3 car at Silverstone with impressive and encouraging results. Drivers Claudi Hürtgen and Walter Csaba drove the new car to 8th overall in the first race and then 7th overall in the second race. Michael Petit / Jose Manuel Balbiani and team mates Gilles Vannelet / Pierre-Brice Mena didn't have quite as much success in their Team MP Racing Alpina B6 GT3 as the Alpina cars with only Vannelet/Mena reaching the finish of either race (11th in race one.).