Rising star Simon Gachet doubled down on an impressive opening stint of his highly acclaimed co-driver Christopher Haase during the second Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe race at Zandvoort to take his first Blancpain GT victory in the Saintéloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3.

Gachet took over the car with a gigantic lead of over 10 seconds to second place. Even with super ace Mirko Bortolotti chasing him down, he didn’t give in, finishing nearly 10 seconds ahead of the Lamborghini works driver.

INTERVIEW CHRISTOPHER HAASE | INTERVIEW RAFFAELE MARCIELLO

“It was a tough race, but also easy because I had a 9-second gap to second place,” Simon Gachet says. “I managed the gap with a car that was nice and easy to drive; the team did an amazing job since the beginning of the weekend for which I thank Saintéloc and my teammate as well.

“I know Bortolotti is a really quick driver and for my future career I think it’s really good to win in Zandvoort, it was my first time here so I’m really happy with that.”

For the upcoming Spa 24 Hours, Gachet sees his regular co-pilot Haase team up with fellow Audi works drivers while Gachet himself joins Steven Palette—another one of Saintéloc’s talented young drivers—and Bronze-rated Pierre-Yves Paque in the #26 Pro-Am-entered Saintéloc Audi.

Despite going into the Spa weekend on the back of a race win, Gachet doesn’t think everything will come any easier now.

“In just one word: Work. We need to work each time, each race, at the workshop, with the mechanics and engineers—that is the key to performance.

“This will be my second Spa 24 Hours. Last year I was there but we broke the engine in the first hour.

“It will be a new experience for me. It’s about just staying calm because it’s a long race, but like any other race.”