Ferrari resists Lamborghini in BSS at Misano

Rinaldi Ferrari duo Norbert Siedler and Marco Seefried claimed their first Blancpain Sprint Series victory in the qualifying race at Misano.

Their 458 Italia led from start to finish in the one-hour race held under the lights at the Italian track to win by 1.3 seconds from the Grasser Lamborghini Huracan GT3 driven by Mirko Bortolotti and Patrick Kujala.

Siedler converted pole position into the lead of the race, which he held through an early safety car period, and had an advantage of just over half a second over the AIM-run Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Craig Dolby when the pit stop sequence began.

Seefried emerged from the stops with a three-second lead over Kujala, which the Finn quickly closed to under a second. The Lamborghini then came under pressure from the HTP Motorsport Bentley of Maximilian Buhk, which took the pressure off the Ferrari driver over the final laps.

"I had a little drop on the rear tyres and I saw two cars coming," Seefried said. "Both sets of headlights were getting closer, which made my life easier because they were battling."

Buhk, who shared his Continental GT3 with Vincent Abril, lost ground to the Lamborghini over the final laps and finished 1.3s down. The car was subsequently docked 30s for a pitstop infringement and dropped to seventh place in the final results.

Christopher Mies and Enzo Ide were elevated to a distant third place, the best of the WRT Audi R8 LMS ultras finishing 14s down on the second-placed car.

Mies, who had qualified fifth, dropped as low as 12th after a bad start, but he brought the Audi back up to sixth before a quick turnaround by the WRT squad got Ide out in third place ahead of Buhk.

Valdeno Brito and Atila Abreu claimed fourth in their Brazilian-entered BMW Z4, while the next best of the WRT Audis took fifth in the hands of Stephane Richelmi and Stephane Ortelli. The second BMW Team Brazil entry rounded out the top six with Sergio Jimenez and Caca Bueno.

Dolby and teammate Sean Walkinshaw ended up 13th after problems tightening the left-front wheel at the car's pit stop.

The five-lap safety-car period was caused when championship leader Laurens Vanthoor crashed heavily on the back straight after his WRT Audi came together with the HTP Bentley of Jules Szymkowiak. The impact was enough to rip the engine out of the Audi, but Vanthoor was able to extricate himself from the wreck unaided.

Vanthoor, who shares the #1 WRT with Robin Frijns, was alongside the Bentley through the kink of the back stretch when contact sent both of them into the barriers. The WRT duo, who arrived at Misano for the penultimate round of the BSS with a 26-point lead, will not take any further part in the event.

Vanthoor was released from the circuit medical center following a check-up in the wake of the accident.

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Originally on Autosport.com