Philippe Prette is the first champion to be crowned in the 2026 season of the GT2 European Series, which saw Ginetta dominate across the board in both qualifying and the races at Zandvoort.
While the Gialdini-Njor duo took the overall and SILVER Class honours in both Dutch rounds, the Monegasque driver from LP Racing took no chances and, with great determination, secured two victories in the Masters category at the wheel of the #1 Maserati, confirming his reign as champion for the third year running.
Ginetta also topped the Pro-Am standings, where KTM also claimed a win, whilst the Maseratis from LP Racing and Dinamic Motorsport returned to the podium.
Race One
Ginetta’s superb Saturday was down to Ethan Gialdini and Mikkel Njor, who, at the wheel of the #3 G56 prepared by the CMR team, shared the victory in race one ahead of their team-mates Mike Simpson and Lawrence Tomlinson in the #62.
Gialdini got off to a brilliant start from pole position, maintaining the lead without any real trouble, before handing the wheel of the British car over to Njor for the second stint, which saw them cross the finish line unchallenged, topping the overall standings and the Silver class.
Tomlison/Simpson’s second-place finish, as winners of the PRO/AM class, was a harder-fought affair: they had to fight their way back up from the top five before overtaking the #88 Audi driven by Rosina/Marcucci (LP Racing) on the penultimate lap, leaving the latter pair to settle for third place on the overall podium and second place in the Silver class.
The day of broad smiles and celebrations at LP Racing continued with Prette’s commanding victory in the Masters class: starting from the second row and in contention for an overall podium finish, the Monegasque driver immediately put his class rival Viktor Mraz in his place. Mraz had initially overtaken the #1 Maserati, which then regained the lead ahead of the #89 KTM from RTR Project with a forceful overtake at Turn 1 after just a handful of laps.
After the flurry of pitstops, Prette had to concede the overall podium to Tomlison’s Ginetta, but comfortably held on to fourth place at the finish line – which also meant first in the Masters class – whilst Vraz/Marioneck had to concede a place in the top five to the charging Maserati #8 driven by Yu Lee/Pirri, who secured second place in the Pro-Am class for LP Racing.
In seventh and eighth place are the Mercedes of Thilenius/Hartling (#111 SR Motorsport by SchnitzelAlm) and De Martin/Montserrat (#115 NM Racing), third and fourth in the Pro-Am class respectively, followed by the #119 KTM-MZR driven by Aigner/Kofler, who fought their way back from the rear of the field after being spun round on the first lap following contact at Turn 4 with the #24 Lamborghini-AKF Motorsport driven by Oliver Freymuth, who was penalised with a drive-through penalty that relegated him to last place.
Rounding out the top 10 were Mauro Calamia and Roberto Pampanini at the wheel of the #7 Maserati from Dinamic Motorsport, sixth in the Pro-Am class, followed by Rokos and Lisa (Mercedes-RTR #294), Grip/Russel (KTM-MZR #898), Kuhne/Wiskirchen (Mercedes-SR/SchnitelAlm #110) and Patric Michellier (Ferrari-CMR #73).
However, the Maserati driven by Laura Van Den Hengel and Sarah Bovy was unable to line up: at the end of Qualifying 2, the #85 car from Iron Dames by SP Racing suffered a gearbox problem, preventing the pair from taking part in the first round of the weekend.
Race two
The Ginettas put on another spectacular show in race two on Sunday morning, though the story unfolded quite differently from the first race, as this time Gialdini and Njor secured victory after staging a comeback from sixth on the grid.
At the start, Reinhard Kofler took the lead in the #119 KTM-MZR, followed by Simpson’s Ginetta and Wiskirchen’s Mercedes. Calamia, meanwhile, kept Njor at bay in the battle for fourth place, before temporarily conceding the position to him. This was because the Dane appeared to suffer a brief dip in performance, which saw him drop to sixth, overtaken by the Swiss driver’s Maserati and Jay Mo Hartling’s Mercedes.
The race really heated up after around 10 laps, with Sarah Bovy on a rampage as she began to close the gap on her rivals, climbing from ninth to seventh place, only to then run into a problem with her rear right wheel just before the pitstop, which once again knocked the Iron Dames’ Maserati out of the running.
Meanwhile, at the front, it was Simpson who took the initiative, attacking and overtaking Kofler on lap 11 to take the lead, just before returning to the pits for a pitstop and driver change.
At this stage, with lap times adjusted for handicaps, the #119 KTM—now driven by Marius Aigner—regained the lead, followed by Pampanini’s Maserati and the Ginetas driven by Tomlison and Giardini.
In the battle for the Masters Class, Prette found himself in second place (ninth overall) behind the #89 KTM of his direct rival Mraz, who was in sixth at that point and thus kept the title race wide open.
The final laps proved rather entertaining, with the Ginetas quickly climbing the order, overtaking an Aigner that was in freefall during the closing laps; however, a blow came on the penultimate lap, when the #62 G56 driven by Simpson/Tomlison was handed a stop-go penalty for having been restarted in the pits – during their pitstop – with the aid of an external battery.
The penalty was applied to their race time at the finish line, and the 34-second penalty saw the CMR duo drop from second to seventh place, whilst Prette took second place behind Gialdini/Njor, putting in a blistering performance in the closing stages to catch and overtake Mraz, thereby clinching the Masters title with one race to spare.
The #119 KTM-MZR driven by Aigner/Kofler finished fourth, still securing victory in the Pro-Am class, while the #88 Audi-LP Racing driven by Rosina/Marcucci climbed into the top five, finishing second in the Silver category.
The #7 Maserati-Dinamic driven by Calamia and Pampanini finished sixth by the skin of their teeth, returning to the second step of the PRO/AM podium ahead of the Ginetta driven by the aforementioned Tomlison and Simpson, with Yu Lee and Pirri clawing back an eighth place overall at the last minute at the wheel of the #8 Maserati-LP.
Struggling in the second half of the race, Thilenius/Hartlin’s Mercedes-SR/SchnitzelAlm eventually finished ninth, while Grip/Russel completed the Masters podium by finishing 10th at the wheel of the #898 KTM-MZR.
Back in the paddock, of course, there was a huge celebration for Prette, who has thus retained his title as champion of the category after securing victories in 2024 and 2025, both times in the LP Racing Maserati.
“Winning race one wasn’t half bad! But we knew we couldn’t let up until the very end, so the hope was to do well in race two, too. The conditions weren’t ideal, given the wind, which made the car feel quite unstable, but that’s also part of the fun of driving,” commented the Monaco veteran with a beaming smile.
“I’m absolutely delighted! I’ve clinched the title on my favourite circuit and we gave it our all. It means a great deal to me, not least because of the hard work put in by the team and Maserati to tackle this fantastic championship. I’d also like to thank SRO for organising the event – congratulations to everyone.”
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