SA’s Kelvin van der Linde won the Suzuka 1,000km classic on Sunday, in a Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo shared with Swiss teammate Raffaele Marciello and Belgium’s Charles Weerts.
The race was the fourth round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC), a series of endurance races held at iconic global circuits. It was BMW’s third win after victories at the Bathurst 12-hour in Australia (with Augusto Farfus and brothers Sheldon and Kelvin van der Linde) and the Nürburgring 24 Hours in Germany (Farfus, Jesse Krohn and Raffaele Marciello).
Starting from pole position at Suzuka on Sunday in their #32 BMW, Van der Linde, Weerts, and Marciello defended first place and managed to build a lead. However, several yellow flag and safety car periods brought the field back together, and that the front-runners were on different strategies made for an exciting race. In the final stages, the #32 car was able to pull clear once again and secured victory after 170 laps with a margin of more than 13 seconds. In second place was the Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, with the Johor Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in third.
It sees Kelvin leading the IGTC standings with 85 points ahead of Marciello (80) and Farfus (72), with the final round, the Indianapolis 8 Hour, taking place on October 18.
Van der Linde joined the BMW team this year after finishing second in last year’s German Touring Car Masters (DTM) championship with Audi. In addition to the IGTC he is competing in this year’s World Endurance Championship (WEC), which included the Le Mans 24 Hour race in June.
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