Bastian Buus scored a very emotional home victory for BWT Lechner Racing at the second round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup 2023 at Spielberg/Austria. The young Dane came out as the winner of a great fight with two times Supercup champion Larry ten Voorde. Harry King after a great chase through the field in P3 completed the fantastic team result for BWT Lechner Racing on track, but later dropped back to P10 due to time penalties for two incidents.
Buus managed to take second place already during the first corners, passing surprising front row starter Keagan Masters and immediately chasing down pole sitter ten Voorde: “I knew that with a good first lap I would have a chance for victory. The Safety Car after lap 4 helped me a little bit, after that Larry struggled a bit with grip. It was very, very close, after a few laps I knew exactly where our strengths and weaknesses were”, the 20-year-old Porsche Junior analyzed.
“Sometimes it is a bit frustrating not to get by quickly, but you have to wait for the perfect opportunity.” Which came with a bit more than one lap to go when Buus, who scored his third Supercup win overall, made his move in the hairpin: “I had worked out that this would be my best chance. It was a really hard fight, we were both on the edge, but it was still okay and there was no bad blood between Larry and me afterwards. It is such a great feeling to win here in front of BWT Lechner Racing´s home crowd – a big thank you to everybody who contributed to this great result.”
Harry King had to start from P11 due to being stuck in traffic in qualifying, “and I even lost a few places as I was pushed off during the first lap. But then I was able to make a great recovery, overtook a lot of people, the car was really great, big thank you to the team for that.” The Brit really enjoyed the racing, “and from where I came P3 looked like a really good result, even if a driver always dreams of victory. Of course the penalties are a disappointment now, but for the whole team it was still a great day and I am happy and proud to be part of it.”
Rookie Harri Jones was also unlucky: The Australian became a victim of the usual midfield chaos when he was spun around on lap two and had to retire.
BWT Lechner Racing CEO and Team Principal Robert Lechner celebrated the day at the pitwall together with his brother Walter: “It is very emotional for us to be able to enjoy this victory for BWT Lechner Racing together at our home race, at a track that means so much to us. Already yesterday after qualifying when we did our analysis I was quite convinced we could be really competitive and today in the morning at the team briefing I felt there was something special in the air. Huge congrats to Bastian, who showed that he really is a winner, taking the necessary risks, but never overdoing it. He drove a perfect race! But also Harry put in a fantastic performance, making his way through the field from quite far back and still getting on the podium on track. Penalties about race incidents are always difficult to judge – we just have to accept the decision of the stewards. A big thank you to everyone in the team for their hard work on a nevertheless great weekend for us.”
BWT Lechner Racing Team Manager Michael Schöch already looks ahead: “We have four races in July, next weekend we are already at Silverstone, the home of British motor racing, also a classical event. It is a logistically quite challenging schedule, but going there with two wins out of the first two races in the bag of course is an additional motivation. I hope we can carry over the momentum from this very strong home weekend to continue our fight for the title in both championships.”