Torque Freak Racing have won for the first time ever in the latest GSI Endurance Series race at Monza. The gap was only 6 seconds in the end to Bas Visser who was chasing them to the end for Maniti Racing, with Kuruma Motorsport completing the podium in their debut race.
It’s only their first podium of the season in the GT3 category, and so this win still leaves them a distant 6th in the standings. It came after a nearly 4 hour green flag run to end the race.
The first stint of the 1500km was interrupted by a Safety Car period that came at almost the perfect moment for anyone running a GT3 in the field. However, due to the wave-by procedure, all of the GT3 Pro cars ended up behind the slower GT3s in the train, making for a chaotic restart.
Another Safety Car with about 4 hours to go put Torque Freak Racing 5th on a restart that really reset the field, and that would remain the case until the halfway points were awarded on Lap 130. Importantly though, they were still on the lead lap, which could only be said for 6 cars.
An hour later, they would be up to third, but David Barraclough did spend a fair amount of the hour in the lead, hinting at the possible strategic advantage they might have by the end of the race. This continued for another hour, as Archer Brothers Esports came out behind them for the first time in this phase of the race and despite getting as close as 2 seconds behind, they couldn’t pass before needing another stop.
Their main rivals would soon become Kuruma Motorsport and Maniti Racing, with the former holding 2nd until 30 laps to go, where Bas Visser got through. At that time, the gap was 10 seconds but once again extended after the pitstops, leaving Visser too little time to catch Barraclough for the win in the class.
It would be a first win for Torque Freak Racing, who did have strong pace all day long with a tactical advantage that delivered the knockout blow. After the race, Barraclough said: “It’s a big win for us because it’s the first Torque Freak victory in IVRA for a long time”.
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, he said: “Fuji is one of those tracks where there is possibility for different approaches, and we tend to do best when that happens”. Barraclough also admitted to feeling less than optimistic about the next round at Motegi, having never scored a memorable result there.
It was a big win for the team. It came against some real high-class opposition, and needed elements of strategy and pace to be executed correctly. They managed that, and will be hoping they can take this form in the next race.
The GSI Endurance Series will return in 10 days’ time for the first of two races in the far east, 1500km of racing at Motegi.