Tough Weekend for Maloy at Spa
The third round of the European GT4 Championship took place at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium On Friday & Saturday, the event supported the biggest GT race in the World, the CrowdStrike 24 hours of Spa. An event like the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa always draws the largest field of the season with 57 GT4 cars.
After practice and the traditional parade through the town of Spa-Francorchamps qualifying turned out to be a mixed result for the #92 Porsche of Nick Maloy and teammate Emil Heyerdahl, with Emil qualifying for race 1 in P11 and Nick qualifying in P36 after a red flag disrupted his run.
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Race one started at dusk on Friday evening with Emil immediately in a tight battle, then a full course yellow towards the end of his stint slowed any progress. Emil pitted at the end of lap 14 and handed over to Nick but whilst exciting the pitlane one of his seat belts came undone and Nick had to stop at the exit to re attach his belts. After losing a lot of time Nick was setting personal best laps when 2 laps from the end Nick had to retire the car with a radiator issue.
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Race 2 on Saturday saw Nick start from P36 but by the end of lap 1 he had already made up three places but a safety car was deployed to recover a stranded car. Once the race restarted Nick had to serve a stop & go penalty for his pit infringement in race 1 which dropped him to the back of the field into P51. By lap 9 Nick had made up 30 seconds and was now on the back of the field but another safety car was deployed slowing his progress through the field. With the race now back to green the pit window opened and Nick pitted from P45. A clean pit stop saw teammate Emil rejoin into P38. Another safety car on lap 14 bunched up the field and with 9 minutes remaining Emil continued to pick up places crossing the line in P27 overall and P15 in the Pro class.
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The next round of the European GT4 Championship is at Hockenheim, Germany on 19-21 July.
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