Mies and Riberas inherit Nurburgring Blancpain win
Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas have been awarded the win of the opening Nurburgring Blancpain GT Sprint Cup race after a 30-second post-race penalty was applied to the winning Lamborghini.
Podium: #1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Alex Riberas, Christopher Mies
Alexander Trienitz
The post-race call is enough to lift the WRT Audi pairing into the championship lead, with their total of 90.5 points meaning that the #88 ASP Mercedes of Michael Meadows and Raffaele Marciello is now its only title rival.
Meadows and Marciello are nine points behind in the title race and start Sunday's race from pole.
The #63 Lamborghini Huracan of Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart initially took the win, before TV footage emerged showing Engelhart wearing his frontal head restraint over the shoulder straps of his harness, which is a breach of the sporting regulations.
Article 120 states that "a driver's safety harness must be securely fastened before the car leaves the team's working area but, on exiting the pits, the driver may further tighten the belts or adjust them".
The penalty drops the #63 car down to 13th position, promoting the #1 Audi of Mies and Riberas into first ahead of the sister #2 WRT car of Will Stevens and Dries Vanthoor.
The #19 Lamborghini Huracan of Ezequiel Perez Companc and Andrea Caldarelli completes the revised podium.
By Anna Duxbury
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