Calan Williams has executed a stunning weekend of racing to, along with teammate Niklas Krutten, claim the 2023 GT World Challenge Championship, along with the 2023 GT World Challenge Sprint Cup title.
Calan and Niklas commenced the final Sprint Cup round at Zandvoort with a 6 point deficit to the Audi of Panis and Di Folco, along with being 11 points behind in the overall Championship standings.
Conditions were bleak and cold for the first qualifying session on Saturday morning, however both Calan and Niklas had performed strongly in wet conditions through practice on Friday, so were entering the event with confidence.
Sprint events comprise of two 1-hour races across the weekend, with a qualifying session for each. Each driver qualifies for one race, and then starts the same race in the car first.
Niklas was behind the wheel for Qualifying 1 on Saturday and performed strongly. He placed the car in P17 overall, of the 25 car field, and P2 in the Gold class. The Audi of Panis and Di Folco was behind in P4 of the Gold class and P21 on the overall grid.
Niklas started the race well in damp conditions, but unfortunately had to take evasive action to avoid contact which dropped him down to P24. With strong racing however, he would work his way back up to P17, and P2 in Gold, directly on the tail of the Audi in a straight battle for Championship points.
When the pit window opened, both cars boxed at the same time. Niklas and Calan performed a swift driver change and the WRT mechanics demonstrated why they are regarded the best in the world. When Calan sped away from the pits, he exited imeediately in front of the Audi of Di Folco to take the lead for the Gold class.
Calan drove a strong race to pull away, and finish in P10 overall, and P1 Gold with the Audi in P2 Gold on track. In a twist of fate however, Calan and Niklas would receive a 5 sec penalty for Niklas narrowly passing before the start line on a restart, but the Audi would receive a 10 sec penalty was causing a collision during the race.
In the end, Calan and Niklas finished P2 Gold, and the Audi P4 meaning that the lead of Panis and Di Folco would be down to just 1.5 points heading into the final race on Sunday.
Qualifying in the morning would be critical with Zandvoort not an easy circuit to overtake on. Calan was taking the Sunday morning qualifying session, and a wet and drying track would be particularly difficult to navigate.
Starting on the wet tyre, the session commenced well, but by the time Calan was able to put his initial flying laps in, the track was almost dry enough for slicks, so they made the change as did the rest of the field. With around 7 mins of the session to go, and the track improving all the time, every lap would be critical.
Calan delivered a strong first push lap, moving him up to 6th overall, and then the next was even better taking him up to P1 to the strong approval of the WRT garage.
On his next lap Calan improved further in the first sector, but then his Engineer made a very shrewd call instructing Calan to back off as he could see he would catch slower cars for the following lap which would be even more important with the track improving.
Of course, this would mean Calan would have to nail that following lap again, and this he did, putting himself P1 again only to be narrowly pipped by teammate Maxime Martins by 0.04 sec.
Calan had secured his first outright front row start in the Championship in P2, just 4 hundredths of a second off fellow WRT driver Maxime Martins on Pole. Panis and Di Folco were starting with their Audi down in P23.
Calan got away to a good start in the race but was held out on the outside into turn 1. The Mercedes on the inside line ran deep into turn 1, and Calan left some room as he should given the title situation. He then settled into the race well in outright P3 (P1 Gold) and started pulling a gap on P4 behind.
With the Championship looking comfortably in reach, there would be yet another twist around 10 mins to go before the window opened up for the compulsory pit stop and driver change. Extremely rain suddenly changed the track from dry to very wet in an instant.
On slick tyres, in extremely difficult conditions, Calan was required to survive until the pit stop window would open as a change to wet tyres before this window would detroy their race and Championship ambitions.
Both the cars in front of Calan lost control at separate corners running wide and Calan overtook them both to take the lead of the race where he continued to pull away slightly before a accident further behind instigated a full course yellow condition, thankfully allowing the field to slow in formation with Calan leading the race outright.
Following a good driver change, Niklas then went out and did a brilliant job eventually bringing the car home in a strong P3 position overall and P1 Gold.
To finish the race on the outright podium in P3 is just another incredible achievement for Calan and Niklas to end the season on. They were the only non-pro car to get on the outright podium all year.
In his first season of GT racing, and the highest level, this caps off an incredible year for Calan. Along with Niklas (and JB Simmineaur in the Endurance events) they have achieved 4 class victories, 9 class podiums, 1 class pole, an outright front row start and an overall race podium.
