The #37 All-Inkl car took the win in the main event. ©Hecq/SRO

The #37 All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport Mercedes has joined its team mate on the GT1 World Championship winners list. Nicky Pastorelli and Thomas Jager claimed the win from the bosses #38 car to head up a Mercedes-Benz 1-2 in the Championship race at Portimao. The win rounds out a fantastic weekend for the All-Inkl.com team, who have not won in GT1 since Navarra in 2011.

The winning car battled tooth and nail with Mark Basseng and Markus Winkelhock in the team car, while simultaneously fending off advances from the #1 McLaren MP4-12C GT3 of Step Dusseldorp and Fred Makowieki. The trio crossed the line with only five seconds covering all three cars, just 1.537 seconds split the two SLS AMGs.

The battle was so close at the pit window that the McLaren actually emerged with a slim lead. The #38 car took its chances to get by, struggling to make the moves stick against the Hexis run British machine. The two All-Inkl.com cars switched, which gave Thomas Jager the momentum. He passed his team mate the immediately blasted past the McLaren. The #38 car took the chance a lap later to duplicate the move but was unable to match the pace of Jager, who built his 1.5 second lead and held it to the finish.

Daryl O'Young and Peter Kox took fourth place in their Reiter Engineering Lamborghini, ahead of the BMW Z4 of Vita4One and the Burmann/Belpairing. The two cars were locked in a proper battle at the line, with just three tenths separating the Gallardo from the BMW. That does not tell the full story either as Burmann was giving Dusseldorp yet more pause for thought, missed a gear on the final lap which allowed the raiging bull to pass him, adding both drama and frustration to the race.

AF Corse lost their main hope, the #3 car of Felip Salaquarda and Toni Vilander after a first turn contact which knocked them out of the race. That also involved the #33 Audi R8 LMS of the Belgian Audi Club WRT team. Oliver Jarvis struggled to recover the car with a rear puncture before running a further six laps, then parking it for the rest of the race. The other Audi R8 also struggled, spinning and slow lapping its way to a disappointing sixth place.

Albert von Thurn und Taxis and Stefan Rosina looked to be on course for a reasonable finish before they retired on lap 26, the same lap which cost us the #2 McLaren of Gregoire Demoustier and Alvaro Parente, the home town hero of the weekend. It didn't look like the two retirements were related though. Neither was the last lap, heart breaking retirement of the sole Porsche in the race.

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