BLACK FALCON clinches second overall victory at 24h race CoTA/USA

Hits: 2343

24h Series - Race Report 24H CoTA/USA

BLACK FALCON repeats last year's success in the 24-hour race at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin/Texas (USA) and thus secures its second overall victory in the third edition of the race. Jeroen Bleekemolen (NL), Ben Keating (US), Felipe Fraga (BR) and Cooper MacNeil (US) dominated the race weekend from the start with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 #4 and secured pole position and an important lead at the end of the first leg on their way to overall victory. Furthermore, the team from Meuspath finished second in the SPX class with the Mercedes-AMG GT4 #464 of Axel König, Norbert Schneider, Axel Sartingen, Daniel Schwerfeld and Alexander Böhm (all DE), which was combined with an excellent eighth place in the overall classification after a flawless performance of the entire team.

BLACK FALCON Mercedes-AMG GT3 #4 - Bleekemolen/Fraga/Keating/MacNeil
The crew of the WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG GT3 #4 set the pace at the third edition of the two-part 24-hour race: After the second fastest time in free practice on Friday morning, Fraga set the fastest time in qualifying with the BLACK FALCON AMG GT3, securing pole position for the team. In the following night practice, the driver quartet continued to lead the field and secured the second best-time of the day. On Saturday morning the 30 car field launched into the first section (11h). A fight for the lead quickly developed, which provided a lot of racing action in the first half of the race. Bleekemolen/Fraga/Keating/MacNeil gained an important lead of one lap right before the scheduled interruption of the race after 11 hours, which was preserved at the re-start on Sunday morning. Despite the comfortable cushion, the team kept up the pace in the second half of the race and rewarded itself with overall victory after a strong performance.

BLACK FALCON Team TEXTAR Mercedes-AMG GT4 #464 - König/Schneider/Sartingen/Schwerfeld/Böhm
For the second time after 2017 BLACK FALCON competed in the 24-hour race in Austin with a Mercedes-AMG GT4. The crew of the BLACK FALCON Team TEXTAR started in the SPX class and took another podium place for the team with second place in the SPX class. König/Schneider/Sartingen/Schwerfeld/Böhm completed a flawless race at their CoTA premiere and in the first half of the race they moved up from 14th on the grid to 11th in the overall standings and finished third in the class after eleven hours. In the second leg the driver quintet of the AMG GT4, which was supported by Atlantic Subaru, QTS Data Centers and TEXTAR, continued its strong performance and moved up to second place in the class. The team also crossed the finish line after 24 hours in an outstanding eighth place overall, thus completing a great team result.

Sean Paul Breslin (Team Principal BLACK FALCON GT): "A great performance of the whole team. Many thanks to our partners, the team and our drivers for the great performance! We started for the title defense in CoTA, reached our goal and of course we are very happy with the result. It was another great event for the team. We are now heading to South Africa with strong momentum, where we will compete in the final race of the season next week".

Timo Frings (Head of Motorsport Team Customer Racing): "The 24-hour race in Austin was a fantastic success for BLACK FALCON and a great end to the season for Team Customer Racing. We had a flawless race with the AMG GT4 and finished the race without a scratch in the top-10 - it couldn't get much better! Many thanks to our drivers, our partners and of course the whole team! We are now looking towards Portugal, where we will be hosting the Season Finale & Season Warm-Up Algarve."

Further information about the BLACK FALCON team is available daily on the team's social media channels:

instagram.com/teamblackfalcon          facebook.com/teamblackfalcon