About 800 guests came to watch the second round of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Central Europe at the famous Red Bull Ring, situated in the beautiful landscape of the Styrian Alps. The track is not only well-known as the long-time host of the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix, but also very much liked by the drivers for its challenging layout and the excellent facilities it provides to everybody, be it in the pits, the paddock or the surrounding areas. Porsche Austria also used the day for their “Cars and Coffee” event, presenting around 400 customer cars on-site.

During the two test days the weather was still a bit iffy at the beginning, with some wet track conditions preventing some teams to make full use of the first hours of practice. But come race day, after a still cloudy early morning start for qualifying, the sun came out completely around noon to create a very pleasant atmosphere for the second half of the day.

Qualifying for Sprint race 1 saw Marius Bartkus from Lithuania setting pole position ahead of Estonian Gregor Jeets and Austrian Tobias Poschik. The fight for pole in the AM category was between Swiss drivers Peter Brunner and Beat Ganz, with the former coming out on top. For race 2 it was PRO driver Ivan Peklin from Ukraine who claimed pole, followed by David Dziwok from Poland and Jeets. Ganz and Brunner in P4 and P5 overall this time swapped positions with Ganz now leading the AM category.

Local hero Tobias Poschik, who had already set quite a few consistent fast times in qualifying, then was able to prove his racing ability during the first heat of the day. He already passed Bartkus, who didn´t have the best start, at the very beginning and on lap 2 took the lead from Jeets. From then on he was pulling away from the field, finally crossing the finish line 10 seconds ahead of the Estonian, with Jakub Chmiel from Poland, who had passed Bartkus on lap 6, in P3. “I am so happy to have won my home race here”, Poschik was beaming all over his face. “It´s a great experience and for sure I will sleep very well tonight!”

Victory in the AM category went to Peter Brunner from Switzerland ahead of Ramunas Grigaitis from Lithuania, with Beat Ganz after a bad start only making it back to P3.

In the second Sprint race, it was Ivan Peklin who finally scored victory after a very hard fight with David Dziwok over the whole distance. Dziwok had taken the lead already in the first corner from the pole sitter, but the action got under investigation, so he gave the first position back to Peklin to avoid a penalty on lap 8. While the Polish driver was able to put a lot of pressure on Peklin, the Ukrainian in the end managed to bring an advantage of only 0.332 seconds over the finish line, securing the lead in the overall Sprint championship and leaving Dziwok with P2 and the Pro-AM victory. The last step on the overall podium went to Jeets, second in Pro-AM ahead of Bartkus.

Beat Ganz from Switzerland claimed the top spot in the AM category, having finished sixth overall, ahead of Petr Brecka from the Czech Republic and Ukrainian Andrii Yefimenko. Peter Brunner after losing some ground at the start never was able to recover and finally ended up in P5 in class.

The Endurance race finally saw Gregor Jeets on the top step of the podium after his second and third places in the Sprint races. The Estonian won the “100 Miles of Austria” together with his co-driver Tauras Tunyla. Doing the first stint, Jeets already handed the car over to the Lithuanian in the lead, which the PRO driver defended until the end of the race, never really challenged by the competition. With their second Endurance victory in a row, Jeets/Tunyla now also lead the overall Endurance championship.

Behind the winners, Ivan Peklin, who had taken over car 84 from his Ukrainian fellow countryman Konstyantyn Gutsul in P4 made his way up through the field, taking P2 and the Pro-AM win on lap 30 with another 11 laps to go. Marius Bartkus and Edvinas Zadeikis from Lithuania finished in P3

Victory in the AM category went to Petr Brecka in P4 overall, ahead of Peter Brunner and Andrii Yefimenko, all three “solo” drivers not sharing the car over the complete distance.