IVRA ClubSport Series

No. 85 Porsche Seventh in 4 Hours of COTA

by Fischer Motorsport PR

November 22, 2020 01:31 AM CET 697 Views

In a drama-filled 4 Hours of COTA, the second round of the IVRA ClubSport Series, Y. Hignet and Pascal Theis in the No. 85 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup take seventh place. The team’s sister No. 84 car with Benjamin Fischer and Manuel Mayer was involved in two major crashes and wound up P17.

Saturday’s four-hour race was the longest of the IVRA ClubSport Series season so far and marked by lots of close and hard racing. Hignet started off from P13 on the grid, with teammate Benjamin Fischer in the No. 84 Porsche directly alongside.

The race started off expectedly hectic and there was an incident right away in turn one, but both Fischer Motorsport cars got through.

Through a series of very tough position battles, Hignet held on to his position, but Fischer fell back to 17th place before accidentally punting the No. 86 Porsche of H2P Performance SRT into the hairpin. Fischer was penalized by race control for the incident with a drive-through penalty, dropping the No. 84 Porsche team even further back.

A horrifying crash at the hairpin near the halfway point, ended the race early for the No. 84 Porsche team

“Yeah, that was my fault. I was faster but couldn’t get past the 86 and made a mistake into the hairpin and punted them. So, I can’t exactly say the penalty was unjust. But it definitely hurt our race.”, a dejected Fischer said.

Hignet, who made only his second career start in the IVRA ClubSport Series, showed good pace as the No. 85 Porsche team made up for a dismal season opener at Road America last month, earning its first top-ten finish, when Pascal Theis took over from Hignet for the second half of the race.

“We really needed that. It’s not a top-five, but we will take this top ten. It’s a good turnaround from last race. We need to get better, but this is a good step in the right direction.”, Theis commented on the race, visibly satisfied but at the same time not quite content.

Mayer, who took over the steering wheel of the No. 84 Porsche from Fischer just before the halfway mark of the race, got to enjoy only four laps of green-flag racing following the restart of a full-course caution, before a major crash into the hairpin damaged the car badly. A lengthy repair stop dropped the team three laps down from the next competitor in the CUP class, leading to a disappointing P17 finish.

“I’m really disappointed. We had a fantastic car. But there was nothing I could have done about that crash. The two cars behind us both completely missed their braking points and we just happened to be in their path of destruction. It sucks.”, Mayer said in a short post-race interview.

The IVRA ClubSport Series now travels to Barber Motorsports Park for Round 3 on December 12th. Official race results and point standings are expected to be announced in the coming days.

Unofficial Race Results