MICHAEL SCHREY WINS WITH H&R AT THE GT4 EUROPEAN SERIES IN MONZA

Wallenhorst. Michael Schrey has made a brilliant start to the season in the GT4 European Series. Together with his team mate
Gabriele Piana, the racing driver from Wallenhorst secured the race victory in Sunday’s race in Monza.
Schrey had already finished third overall in the first race the day before. It was thus a perfect debut for the new #2 H&R BMW M4 GT4 from Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport.
“We are of course delighted with this great result, which was not necessarily to be expected at the start of the new GT4 European Series season. However, our entire Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport team did a brilliant job and prepared the new
BMW M4 GT4 brilliantly,” said Schrey after crossing the finish line.

The starting position after the first qualifying session on Saturday was anything but ideal. Schrey placed the #2 H&R BMW M4 GT4 in 16th place and thus only in the midfield of the almost 50-car grid. Nevertheless, the former ADAC GT4 Germany champion successfully managed to stay out of all the turbulence in the early stages of the race.
“Especially the first corner in Monza is incredibly tight. Although I was in the middle of the pack, luckily everything went well,” said Schrey, who managed to work his way up into the top 10 in the following laps. After a well-timed pit stop in the middle of the race, which brought Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport up to fifth position, Piana took over the cockpit. The Italian fought his way up to third place in the final phase of the race.
“The key to our race to catch up was certainly that we went the distance without any incidents. You can see from the many full-course yellow phases and also the intermediate red flag how many accidents happened on the track in Saturday’s race. It was important to be fully focused all the time, which we managed to do until the end. A small drop of bitterness remains, however, as we unfortunately fell short of the minimum pit stop time by a blink of an eye of 0.2 seconds, meaning that our ‘joker’ was used up in the very first race.”
In the GT4 European Series, all teams have a so-called “pit stop joker”, which entitles them to undercut the minimum standing time by certain seconds once per season without penalty.
In Sunday’s race, Schrey and Piana secured a commanding start-finish success. Starting from pole position, they gradually extended their overall lead and brought it home safely at the end of the one-hour race. “I can only thank Gabriele, who did a brilliant job of laying the proper groundwork with a great qualifying and a perfect first part of the race. We’ll now enjoy this success for a bit and hopefully build on it at Paul Ricard in early June.”
Before that happens, however, Michael Schrey will compete in the 24h race at the Nürburgring (18-21.05.2023).