Barcelona/Spain: With the penultimate round of the International GT Open in Barcelona taking place last week (September 27–29), the tension in the 2024 championship is rising. The reigning champion of the series, the Austrian GT3 Eastalent team, traveled to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with only a two-point lead. As team owner Peter Reicher explained, the focus is entirely on the driver’s championship title. „Last season, thanks to our drivers Christopher Haase and Simon Reicher, we won the team title, but it was revoked at the green table. Therefore, I think it’s only fair if they also win the driver’s title this season.“

The crew of Eastalent Racing had already anticipated that the asphalt of Barcelona would be a tough challenge. With twelfth position in the first qualifying session on Saturday and tenth place in the race, the challenges did not diminish. It wasn’t until the second place in Sunday’s qualifying and the excellent third podium finish on Sunday that the desired relief came.

„The anxiety in the team was obvious, especially with me. We are aware that we are now in the hot phase of the championship. That alone is more than exciting for our young team’s history. My wish would have been to create clear conditions to be a bit more relaxed heading to Monza. In the end, we are still in the lead due to better results so far, despite a tie in points. We will take on the great challenge in Monza and hope to settle everything there,“ reports Peter Reicher.

Simon Reicher describes the weekend as follows: „Basically, the asphalt and the tires made for a tough weekend. Even though we were competitive, it wasn’t great driving on the track. Especially in qualifying, we had a lot of bad luck. There was much more potential. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fun. All in all, we gave everything for the championship. Now, we head to Monza tied in points, and whoever is ahead in Monza will be ahead at the end of the year.“

Points, points, points. The goal was to collect as many as possible to take as little deficit as possible to Monza. A simple formula, but its execution demanded a lot. Audi Sport driver Christopher Haase describes it as follows: „Basically, I am satisfied with the weekend, even though Barcelona has not necessarily been our strength in the past. Regarding vehicle performance, our engineers and mechanics did a fantastic job. They developed a plan to improve our speed in the track sectors to ‚purple‘. We gave it our all, managed to collect points, and now look forward to the finale in Monza, which promises a lot of excitement. We will see who comes out on top in Monza.“

The final of the International GT Open will take place from October 18th to 20th in Monza, Italy.