José Carlos Pires and Francisco Abreu, racing for Speedy Motorsport in a BMW M4 GT4, emerged as the victors in the first race of the third round of the Iberian Supercars Endurance, which took place at the Circuito de Jerez. The race was characterized by challenging weather conditions due to intermittent rain.
One of the key dilemmas at the race's outset was the choice of tires, as looming dark clouds driven by the wind hinted at rain. Despite brief, light rain showers, the track conditions didn't prompt a switch to wet tires.
In the early stages of the race, despite the aggressive attempts by Nuno Pires driving the Lema Racing Mercedes AMG GT4, José Carlos Pires successfully defended his position against his brother's attacks. This, however, left him vulnerable to his pursuers, enabling the Speedy Motorsport BMW driver to establish a significant lead.
Nuno Pires ultimately slipped to fifth place, ceding positions to Jorge Rodrigues in the Veloso Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT4, Manuel Gião in the Racar Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT4, and Guillermo Aso from NM Racing Team.
José Carlos Pires' advantage over Jorge Rodrigues expanded to about five seconds. However, on lap five, Manuel Gião surged into second place and began closing the gap on the leader, eventually narrowing the distance to less than a second.
With the rain still falling lightly, the two drivers in front lengthened their stint as much as possible, trying to stop the moment they needed to change from slicks to wet tyres, but this didn't happen and they both came into the pits on the same lap, very close to the end of the driver change window.
With Francisco Abreu now at the controls of the Speedy Motorsport BMW, Roberto Faria, in the Racar Motorsport Mercedes AMG, initially began to gain some time on the Madeiran, but then the rain began to fall insistently, wetting the track, and the leader was decisively pulled away, safely on his way to the GT4 Pro division duo's third win of the season.
The young Brazilian driver Roberto Faria, making his debut in the series, secured second place, not being bothered by Elias Niskanen, in the Lema Racing Mercedes AMG, who managed to recover to third, but when it rained he decided not to take any risks, as he was too far away from the top two to be able to threaten them.
Guillermo Aso put in a good performance, taking the NM Racing Team's Mercedes AMG GT4 to fourth place, ahead of Jorge Rodrigues and Patrick Cunha, who won GT4 Bronze.
The Audi duo managed their advantage well over the Mercedes AMG GT4 shared by Luís Calheiros and Paulo Macedo, who drove a top-class race in the Lema Racing car, beating Alfonso Colomina, the division's third-placed driver in a McLaren 570S GT4 from SMC Motorsport.
In the Touring Cars field, Daniel Teixeira made a recovery race after yesterday's problems in qualifying sent him to the last place on the starting grid, climbing up to eleventh overall in an impressive performance.
The driver of the JT59 Racing Cupra TCR won the TCR division, beating Beatriz Correia and Manuel Correia, in a similar car from the JC Group Racing Team, who on their debut in the competition at the controls of the Spanish machine secured a creditable second place, in very difficult conditions and with gearbox problems.
Héctor Hernández and Borja Hormigos, in Autoworks Motorsport's BMW M235i Racing, won the TC division race and were joined on the podium by newcomers Miguel Romero and Manuel Almeida, in Monteiros Competição's Ginetta G40, and Javier Serrano and Cesar Moreno, in PRM Racing's Mini Cooper.
In GTX, #007 Araújo Competição Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 shared by Álvaro Ramos and Fernando Soares was in a great fight with Speedy Motorsport's McLaren 570S GT4 shared by Miguel Nabais and André Nabais. However, the brothers ended up dropping out due to a broken radiator after a contact with their direct rivals, and the Lisbon duo of the Aston Martin went on to a safe victory, despite the rain.
Ruben Vaquinhas, in the brand new Aston Martin run by Racar Motorsport, finished his first race with the car in second place. In a race that had a difficult finish, Steve Kirton and Jonathan Elsworth, in one of Tockwith Motorsports' Ginetta G50s, rounded off the GTX podium. Tomás Pinto Abreu and Simon Moore (Tockwith Motorsport Ginetta G50) completed the race while posting the fastest lap.
Second in GTC behind the Aston Martin of Álvaro Ramos and Fernando Soares, Dave Benett and Marcus Fothergill won again in Cup.
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