Chile’s Angel Inostroza has taken his first ever win in the Gran Turismo World Series Nations Cup in a race which saw plenty of drama.
That started in qualifying, with hot favorite Kylian Drumont lining up dead last on the 12-car grid, having wrangled the Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion around Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps almost a second off the pace.
It was another Brazilian pole position, but rather than Igor Fraga keeping his streak going it was Round 1 winner Lucas Bonelli who’d set the fastest time of all. Inostroza would line up alongside, with defending champion Valerio Gallo and Jose Serrano on the second row — while championship leader Fraga was only seventh.
Inostroza got the best start though, beating Bonelli into Eau Rouge and through Raidillon to hit the front. Gallo also got a better run, and took Bonelli early in the Kemmel Straight, with Serrano attempting to follow.
However a misjudging braking point from 2020 Americas Regional champion Adriano Carrazza saw the front of the field scatter. Carrazza tagged Serrano into a fishtail, and the Spanish driver could do nothing to avoid Gallo, sending both off the outside of Les Combes. Serrano would recover to fourth, but Gallo dropped down to 11th, while Carrazza earned a three-second penalty and fell to last.
That cleared the air behind Porsche-specialist Inostroza, who’s previously taken a solo Manufacturers Cup win with the brand as well as a 2019 World Tour Tokyo Manufacturers Cup win, and scored two class wins this season in a 911 in the GT World Challenge Americas series in Assetto Corsa Competizione.
The Chilean driver needed little invitation to pile on the fastest laps, building a three-second gap in just the first three laps to Bonelli behind. That became four seconds by halfway.
It was that point when the rain came. After being much-teased by the commentary team, a gentle shower started through lap six, prompting Serrano to dive into the pits for the Intermediate wet-weather tire.
As the rain started to come down more heavily during lap seven, it looked like Serrano had pulled a masterstroke. The majority of the field came in on the next tour but, crucially, Inostroza opted to remain out on the slick Softs. He wasn’t alone, with Gallo, Ryota Kokubun, and Tomoaki Yamanaka all going round again.
With the final stops done it soon became clear that laps six and seven had been too early for the inters. Inostroza emerged with a three-second lead — trimmed slightly due to taking on ten liters of fuel — from Gallo, with Kokubun keeping third by more than two seconds from Bonelli.
Yamanaka, oddly, opted for a second set of Softs at his stop and began to plummet down the order to ninth. However as the rain ceased with two laps remaining he started an amazing charge back up the order.
After dispatching Drumont and Kanata Kawakami, Yamanaka cruised up from seventh to fourth in the first half of the final lap — but picked up a one-second penalty in the process for a robust pass on Fraga at La Source. He’d finish within sight of the podium, four seconds clear of Bonelli; one more lap could have netted a first Nations win for the two-time Manufacturer Cup champion.
Inostroza though was uncatchable. He managed the gap between himself and Gallo behind at a fairly constant three seconds to claim his own first victory in the Nations Cup, with Gallo managing a remarkable recovery to second for his first points of the season after that first-lap crash, and Kokubun storming to third from tenth on the grid.
That means that, despite the field being packed with champions in both disciplines, each of the three races this season has had a different winner and each has taken their first ever victory. However it’s the original champion Igor Fraga that still tops the table leading into Round 3 later this month:
- Igor Fraga (Brazil) – 7 points
- Kylian Drumont (France) – 6 points
- Ryota Kokubun (Japan) – 5 points
- Lucas Bonelli (Brazil) – 4 points
- Angel Inostroza (Chile) – 3 points
- Baptiste Beauvois (France) – 3 points
- Jose Serrano (Spain) – 2 points
- Valerio Gallo (Italy) – 2 points
- Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 1 point
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