Kicking off the weekend on his first visit to Misano, Benjamin showed strong pace across Friday’s practice and Pre-Qualifying sessions. Re-united with his team-mate Kelvin van der Linde, the young duo were off to a promising start.
Saturday however didn’t quite go their way. After a tough qualifying session, Goethe had to start Race 1 at the lower end of the grid and got caught up in the chaos at the start, dropping to the back of the field after being spun around. Carving his way through the pack, he passed the car to van der Linde in P17 from P28.
The South African driver carried on with the charge all the way up to P10, but unfortunately, an electrical issue in the final lap stopped him from converting their great pace into a points finish.
Not hindered by the setback, Kelvin took the start in Sunday’s race after qualifying in P6 in the morning. He made a clean getaway and fiercely held onto his position, handing the reins over to Benji at the halfway mark.
After a faultless stop by Pirelli Pit Stop Challenge winning Team WRT, the ROFGO Junior driver rejoined the race in third place and displayed a startling performance all the way to the checkered flag.
The 18-year-old youngster didn’t put a foot wrong, fending off the immense pressure from behind like a pro, and steered the #30 ROFGO Racing Team WRT Audi R8 LMS to P3, claiming his first overall GT World Challenge Europe podium. This was also the Millfield School graduate’s third podium finish of the season.
“I’m very happy with this result in the end.’’ – Benjamin said. “We had some bad luck in Saturday’s race, so I feel like we deserved a good result on Sunday. The pace was really good, the team did a great job all weekend and I’m very happy for them since every WRT car was on the podium.”
Benji’s next race will be the ‘big one’: the 24 Hours of Spa, the greatest GT3 race in the world will take place in less than a month’s time.
