Henrique Chaves ended the second race of the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya International GT Open’s round in fourth, improving is situations in the title fight.
The qualifying wasn’t a smooth affair for the Portuguese driver, as, after signing the provisional pole-position, he wasn’t able to improve with the second tires set because of track traffic and was just ninth in the end of the session.
The start for the sixty minutes contest was very exciting, with many fights, but in the end of the first lap, Henrique Chaves was eighth, keeping the distance to his pursuers while following the cars ahead, who were showing a strong pace.
With the top 8 positions stabilized, the Portuguese driver hand over the Teo Martín Motorsport’s McLaren 720S GT3 to Martin Kodric in eighth. With a pleasant handicap and with some slower drivers ahead, the Croatian driver was able to recover to fourth, crossing the finish line in that position.
In the end, Henrique Chaves pointed out the qualifying as the decisive moment for the race result. “I was fast in the qualifying and was the fastest with the first set of tires, but with the second I never got a clean lap. I wasn’t able to put the tires in the right temperature window because of the traffic and in my fastest lap I caught a slower car and lost loads of time. I didn’t improve my laptime while the others improved over a second and I lost many positions. In the race everything went as we expected – we recovered and ended fourth, which allow us to clean our handicap for the Monza round”, said the Portuguese youngster.
The Torres Vedras driver admits that Barcelona weekend wasn’t as expected, but, he is nearer from the championship leaders and he underlines that he will fight until the season’s last lap. “We were expecting better results in this circuit, but for one reason or another, things didn’t go our way. We are nearer from the championship leaders and we will give our best until the last moment. At Monza we won’t have handicap in both races, and we will work hard to fight for both wins”, said Henrique Chaves.
The next International GT Open round will be held at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza at September 12th – 13th.
