Rast/Ide win second Zandvoort Blancpain GT race

WRT Audi drivers Rene Rast and Enzo Ide came from behind to win the Main Race at the Zandvoort round of the Blancpain Sprint Series.

Ide completed his stint in third position aboard the Audi R8 LMS ultra before Rast resumed in second behind Maximilian Buhk in the HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG just before a short rain shower.

Rast closed down on Buhk in the Mercedes he shared with Maiximilian Gotz in the wet conditions and got a run on the leader down the back straight with 20 minutes of the race to go and was able to make the pass into the Hans Ernst Bocht.

Rast pulled away from the Mercedes, which subsequently spun, and then had to fight a rear-guard action against Dominik Baumann in the Schubert BMW Z4 to seal victory.

"We had a small discussion on the radio about the weather and, in the end, I made the call to stay on slicks, and it paid off," Rast said. "The Mercedes was way slower than us in those conditions; Max was really struggling with his rear tyres."

Baumann and GT rookie Thomas Jager ended up just over a second down at the finish on the first appearance in the championship for the Schubert team.

Team Herberth, another BSS newcomer, ended up a distant third with its Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by Robert Renauer and Jaap van Lagen.

Van Lagen exploited the Porsche's wet-weather prowess to come from seventh after the pitstops to take the final podium spot. Buhk and Gotz ended up fourth ahead of Qualifying Race winners Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk in the best of the Grasser Lamborghinis.

Proczyk led from Gotz to the pit stops, but a disastrous tire change and then a spin from Bleekemolen on his outlap left them as low as 10th.

The second WRT Audi, which had finished third in yesterday's opening race with Laurens Vanthoor and Cesar Ramos, ended up 10th after Vanthoor came into the pits to change to wets during the rain shower.