Challenging Weekend for Austrian GT-3 Team at Red Bull Ring

Eastalent Racing fall short of their potential in the GT Open

Spielberg/Austria: The Austrian GT-3 team Eastalent Racing had high hopes for a podium in the international GT Open in front of their home crowd at the Red Bull Ring. The team is currently in third place in the championship and aspired to give its numerous fans a special treat last weekend (September 8-10). Political celebrities also traveled to the circuit from the team’s homebase Kirchberg near Mattighofen. None other than mayor Georg Mendler had his fingers crossed for his hometown GT-3 team.

“I’ve been following the team and its development for several years. Our cooperation is very personal, as team owner Peter Reicher is also active in our community. I really appreciate the mutual exchange of information and news. The team’s regular media presence in our daily newspapers is well received too. It would be great if this positive media work continues and grows in the future. We also like to see community involvement on social media. I wish Eastalent Racing the best at our home race in front of local fans, family, and friends!”

Generally, very few race weekends go perfectly. Audi Sport driver Christopher Haase describes the weekend as a roller coaster of emotions: “We started the weekend very strongly, but some circumstances didn’t make it easy for us to show our best performance. These things happen, that’s motorsports. Nonetheless, we focused on damage limitation trying not to get knocked out of the race for the championship. I think we managed that quite well with fifth position in the first race and fourth in the final. We knew in advance that the Red Bull Ring is not one of our strong suits. That also applies to the upcoming race in Monza. If we prepare well and perform strongly at Monza, anything is possible in the championship. The team did a fantastic job again this weekend, so we can work positively towards the remaining two events.”

Simon Reicher describes the weekend as difficult and explains that the team got away with some luck. “Our tests a week ago already confirmed some challenges at the Red Bull Ring. A portion of luck, lots of fighting spirit, and excellent work from the whole team gave us fifth and fourth position in the two races. This saved our weekend! Of course, we would have liked to do a little better in front of our home crowd. But motorsports is not about wishes. The race on Sunday could have ended quite differently. During the safety car phase, we entered the pits one lap too late for the optimal driver change. Others behind us managed that better and won the race. All in all, I’m not unhappy with our weekend,” explains Simon Reicher.

Team owner Peter Reicher sees it similarly: “We did a good job in the free practice sessions on Friday with the fastest lap times. The devil lies in the details and made Saturday’s qualifying quite a challenge. To move up from eleventh place on the grid to fifth position and gain points in the championship over our competitors was a great performance by the whole team. There was a lot of excitement on Sunday in the second race when Christopher Haase crossed the finish line in fourth position after offering the spectators exciting and fair duels in the race. Only our pit stop was a bit unlucky. Nevertheless, we are satisfied with the weekend, especially since we were able to score important championship points again.

Addendum: As the international GT Open just announced, the competitor in third place has been penalized by three places. Thus Eastalent-Racing takes over third place and a podium finish in Sunday’s race.

Eastalent Racing will soon be off to Monza, Italy, for the penultimate race of the season taking place September 22–24.