A spectacular win for the Reiter Engineering team. While Hans Reiter’s crew claimed victory in the GTX class, True Racing completed the 1-2 by finishing in second place. MotoGP™ rider Miguel Oliveira can look back upon a weekend in which he learned a lot.
Eike Angermayr, Mads Siljehaug and Horst Felbermayr Jr. proved the potential of the KTM X-BOW GTX with an impressive recovery drive. Following issues in the earlier stages, the trio had to start from the pit lane and therefore with a gap to the opposition.
That the race still resulted into seventh place overall and victory in the GTX class was a pleasure for Hans Reiter in particular. “Our trio has worked hard to secure this success,” the team principal said. “We had decided to do only double stints. That paid off indeed, but it was a real challenge for the drivers in these temperatures. Another factor was that we were one of only few cars with only three drivers alternating behind the wheel, that made it even more complicated.”
Successful on two and four wheels: in the Barcelona 24-hour race, Miguel Oliveira showed his skills behind the wheel of a KTM X-BOW GTX for the first time. Together with works driver Reinhard Kofler and the two stalwarts Peter Kox and Ferdinand Stuck, the Portuguese was classified tenth overall after 647 laps.
“For me, that was an exciting excursion to car racing,” said the 26-year-old, who is normally competing in the motorcycle world championship. “It was a completely different form of racing for me, no doubt. Because of the permanent overtaking of slower opponents, keeping up the pace all the time wasn’t that easy. That is something I don’t know from MotoGP™.”
It could even have been a class win, as Oliveira points out: “We were in the lead all the time, but we lost considerable time due to problems during the night. Nevertheless, I am very happy. Prior to the race, I said that I wanted to make it to the finish. That worked out!”
Less successful, meanwhile, were the pole sitters from RTR projects. The Czech team that had started the race from tenth place on the overall grid, dropped back after a promising performance in the early stages already and retired during the night.
Hubert Trunkenpolz, board member, KTM AG, closely followed the race as a driver of the #717 (True Racing, 4th place in the GTX class). “All the KTM teams presented themselves really well in spite of all the challenges and delivered numerous highlights,” he says. “For instance, I was really happy to see how Miguel Oliveira got better and better with every session and eventually even ended up on the podium. I am just as happy for the Felbermayr car, run by Reiter Engineering. Congratulations to Horst Felbermayr Jr., Mads Siljehaug and Eike Angermayr on victory in the GTX class and seventh place overall.”