Now, that is how you keep a championship alive. According to Motorsport.com Italia, the LMGT3 title fight in the FIA World Endurance Championship is officially going down to the wire after a stellar masterclass in Spain.
Driving the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R prepared by Manthey Racing, the reigning champion pairing of Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz alongside Yasser Shahin dominated the 6h de Barcelona. They had to work for every single centimeter of it, though. Jonny Edgar and the #33 Corvette-TF Sport crew still sit 18 points ahead in the standings, but this #92 machine bearing The Bend livery made it abundantly clear they are not going down without a fight.
Surely we will go to Monza without having anything to lose, given the wide gap, so we will definitely aim for success.
The groundwork was laid early on. Shahin launched off the line and seized the lead right after the first Safety Car restart without putting a single wheel wrong. As conditions shifted and the threat of rain loomed over the Circuit de Catalunya, Lietz and Pera rotated through the stints to protect that hard-earned advantage. A brilliant strategy call to split the stints with Richard kept the Weissach machine clear of late threats, even as a late-race neutralization threatened to wipe out their hard work.
"After three podi, finally us truly deserve this victory, that we wait since the beginning of the season," Pera said. "Yasser and Richard drove very well and the team did an extraordinary job with the setup of the car and the strategy." He added that managing the trickier wet patches during the final stint kept everyone on edge: "There were many things to manage, but in the end the result was positive."
A key ingredient to the Catalan triumph was an unscheduled test session held in the weeks prior. Lietz pointed directly to those extra laps as the turning point that allowed the trio to bounce back from a difficult post-Le Mans slump. Meanwhile, Shahin's phenomenal wet-weather pace earned him the Goodyear FootWing Award for his opening double stint.
With the gap now down to 18 points, the trio heads to Monza for the final showdown with nothing left to hold back. "Certainly the victory of Barcelona is positive and the gap now is 18 points compared to the leaders," Pera noted. "Surely we will go to Monza without having anything to lose, given the wide gap, so we will definitely aim for success."
