Formula 1 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin on the prototype of the SMP Racing team are the winners of the race and the entire season. The first ever 6-hour endurance race in the status of the Russian Cup SMP RSKG Endurance took place at Sochi Autodrom on November 4. The grueling motor marathon turned an important page in the history of the track in the Olympic Park: starting next year, the distance of the track will be reduced from 5.8 to 2.3 kilometers.
The race was attended by 1.5 thousand spectators, who were able to go to the starting line before the start of the race, and then watched the fight from the very heart of Sochi Autodrom.
72 drivers competing in 28 cars took advantage of the opportunity to drive the Formula 1 Grand Prix configuration for the last time. The fight was both for victory in the overall classification and in individual classes. The crews covered about 1,000 kilometers, stopping only to change pilots, change tires and refuel, for which barrels of high-tech G-Drive fuel were installed in each box. Operational quality control and compliance with fuel standards at the circuit was ensured by a mobile laboratory of the Gazprom Neft gas station network.
In qualifying, the first three crews of the fastest group F were separated by less than 0.01 seconds! At the start, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Denis Remenyako and Konstantin Tereshchenko took first place from the Russian sports prototype BR03 driven by Formula 1 pilots Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin, another SMP Racing crew consisting of Ivan Chubarov and Alexander Bolduev held on to third place. The race leaders spent the first hour at the same pace: at the intermediate finish they were separated by less than a second!
After two hours of continuous struggle, the situation changed. Accidents and derailments that caused the appearance of the safety car influenced the balance of power. One of the key moments was the contact of the BR03 prototype driven by Ivan Chubarov with the Mercedes of Denis Remenyako, after which the supercar turned around and then drove into the pits. Chubarov and Bolduev took the lead, pursued by the crew of Petrov and Sirotkin, and again with a lag of less than a second!
The duo of Victor Shaitar and Alexander Smolyar overcame the two-hour period in the same lap with them, with a gap of two laps – another SMP Racing crew consisting of Irina Sidorkova and Kirill Ladygin. And right behind him is the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Denis Remenyako and Konstantin Tereshchenko.
The crew of Petrov and Sirotkin was the first to cross the equator. A series of pit stops and heavy traffic affected the intervals between the leaders: at the three-hour mark the duo of Shaitar and Smolyar were one lap behind, Sidorkova and Ladygina two laps behind, Chubarova and Bolduev three. Remenyako and Tereshchenko remained in fifth place, but the fines imposed on all SMP Racing crews, except for the leading one, left the Mercedes pilots with hope of at least a podium place in Group F.
In four hours, the two leading BR03 cars covered exactly 100 laps – that is, more than almost 550 kilometers! Ahead is the pair Petrov/Sirotkin, followed by Shaitar/Smolyar. Behind them, two laps behind, are Remenyako/Tereshchenko and Chubarov/Bolduev, then Sidorkova/Ladygin.
And a quarter of an hour later, a significant event occurred: while the leading crew was at a pit stop, the Mercedes continued to race along the track – and the Remenyako/Tereshchenko crew took the lead in the race! But not for long.
The BR03 prototype of Sergei Sirotkin and Vitaly Petrov was the first to overcome the five-hour mark, almost 10 seconds ahead of the Remenyako/Tereshchenko crew. Moreover, the gap continued to grow with each lap – but the third BR03 of Alexander Smolyar and Victor Shaitar, on the contrary, was reducing the gap from Mercedes. By that time, the Sidorkov/Ladygin crew had lost six laps to the leaders, and Chubarov and Bolduev dropped out of the fight altogether due to a technical malfunction.
After six hours of continuous competition, the overall winner was the crew of Vitaly Petrov and Sergei Sirotkin. And the duo of Denis Remenyako and Konstantin Tereshchenko lost to them by only about 7 seconds, finishing in second place! This means that in the individual competition of the Russian Cup, three pilots scored the same number of points – but Petrov and Sirotkin won more victories, so Remenyako is content with the silver award.
The crew of Viktor Shaitar and Alexander Smolyar finished third in the final race of the season. Fourth place goes to another pair of SMP Racing pilots, Kirill Ladygin and Irina Sidorkova.
Athletes on potentially fast sports prototypes from the G-Drive Racing teams, represented by Roman Rusinov, Alexander Dudarev and Kirill Kirakozov, and Winline Yakhnich Motorsport, consisting of Arkady Tsaregradtsev, Nadezhda Yakhnich and Roman Tivodar, were unable to fully compete for the highest awards. Both cars retired early, although Roman Rusinov managed to demonstrate a fantastic pace, setting the best lap time in the race.
One way or another, the crew in a GT4 category car burst into the top five in the overall standings – and were the best in This class was won by Anton Nemkin and Alexander Vartanyan, who competed in a Mercedes-AMG GT4. They were accompanied on the GT4 podium by the crews of Oleg Semenov and Vladimir Atoev (BMW M4), as well as Maxim Kizilov and Sergey Borisov (Mercedes-AMG GT4). Based on the total points for the past stages, Sergey Borisov becomes the winner of the Russian Cup in this class.
In the Touring class, where the Russian Cup is also played, the marathon was won by the crew of Alexey Dudukalo, Andrey Maslennikov and Mikhail Simonov, who drove an Audi RS3 LMS – they also won at the end of the entire season. And after the failures of the cars prepared according to the requirements of Super-production, the less fast Grants of the S1600 category took the lead – it was their crews that became winners of the Touring race: silver for Vladimir Sheshenin, Azat Kalimullin and Razil Valiakhmetov, bronze for Andrey Petukhov, Tatyana Eliseeva and Sergei Rozhkova.
Awards to the winners and runners-up were presented by the founder of the Russian motorsport development program SMP Racing B. R. Rotenberg and the deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, head of the Automobile Sports Federation of the Chechen Republic M. I. . Akhmadov.
The 2023 season was the debut for the SMP Racing program as the promoter of the Russian Endurance Cup. More than 100 pilots took part in four stages of the SMP RSKG Endurance series. Races lasting from 3 to 6 hours took place on tracks in Sochi, St. Petersburg and Grozny.
Next season, the SMP RSKG Endurance series will include 5 stages, which will be hosted by racetracks in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Grozny.
Recordings of all races are available on the portal VK Video.
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