This past weekend, Team Icer Brakes participated in the Barcelona 24 Hours that was held at the Circuit de Catalunya. The Spanish team once again participated in association with the Belgian structure SpeedLover. The team put two Porsche 996 Cup on the track, driven by Jesús Díez Villarroel, Philippe Richard, and Carlos Rivas in the first, and Robert Matot, Pierre-Yves Paques, René Marin and Jean-Michel Gérome in the second.
After Friday’s open training session, came the classification. Díez Villarroel had the best time, 2:02.456, which put him in fourth position in his category. The second car was sixth, with a lap time of 2:05.091. Before the race, on Friday night, the drivers had the chance to get used to the night in a night-time training session.
The race, which was marked by changing weather conditions, started at midday on Saturday, and in the start, Díez Villarroel brought all of his racing experience into play, which includes the Le Mans 24 hours, Daytona 24 hours, and Spa 24 hours. Driving the first leg, the Spanish pilot was running among the top ten in the general classification, and was the leader in his category. After two hours, the SpeedLover car driven by Díez Villarroel was sixth overall and first in its category, and the second vehicle was in fifth place in the Porsche classification.
Unfortunately, problems slowed the car driven by Díez Villarroel, Rivas and Richard starting in the third hour, and shortly after, the same thing happened to the second car. When they returned to the track, the cars returned to their positions among the fastest, but Díez Villarroel and his team mate were forced to drop out eight hours into the race, with the second vehicle following suit after 20th hour, with the finish line in sight.
In any case, the team was very satisfied with the results while both cars were on the track, because they were both close to what were ultimately the winning times, and at the same time, the joint venture proved to be very fruitful.