Kessel Racing had another impressive weekend at the fifth round of the Ferrari Challenge Europe at the Paul Ricard Circuit this weekend. With two start-to-finish race wins in COPPA SHELL, Frenchman Henry Hassid dominated the field and extended his lead in the championship standings.
Saturday, 27th July 2024
In the first competitive day, Henry Hassid snatched Pole Position by 0.687 seconds for the first race, starting from the front spot on the grid and leading the field to the chequered flag. Kessel Racing´s newcomer Ernst Kirchmayr showed an immediate strong performance by qualifying in sixth place and narrowly missing out on a podium with P4 in the race. Fons Scheltema made-up four positions during his race and brought home good points in seventh place.
The double podium-scorer from Portimão, Jan Sandmann, underlined his upcoming strength with P5 in the COPPA SHELL AM qualifying, only to climb onto the podium once again to take third place at the end of the race. His team-mate Stephen Earle completed the Top-10 in the race on Saturday.
Sunday, 28th July 2024
It truly was the weekend of Henry Hassid, who also took Pole Position for Sundays race. The 64-year-old put in an impressive drive and after 30-minutes secured his second race victory of the weekend on home turf. It was also a great day for Fons Scheltema: The Dutchman qualified in eighth on the grid and crossed the finishing line in P4, making it his best result of the year so far. Sadly, Ernst Kirchmayr was struck by bad luck as he was forced to retire the car in the pits from fourth place with only seven minutes to go.
In the second COPPA SHELL AM race, Jan Sandmann started from the second row on the grid and was looking good for yet another podium result. However, after an unfortunate incident where he ran wide and forced the #115 into a spin, he was unable to fight for a top result. Stephen Earle had his personal best race of the season by finishing in a fantastic fourth position.
Kessel Racing is now heading into a short summer break until the team is back racing in the European Le Mans Series at the prestigious circuit of Spa Francorchamps (Belgium) in four weeks.