●        Jaap van Lagen secures his fourth win of the season at the Hockenheimring

●        Joep Breedveld claims an impressive podium finish on Sunday and remains in contention for the Rookie title

●        The team still has a chance of winning titles in all classes; season to be decided at Circuit Zolder in October

Maastricht, 15 September 2026 – Team RaceArt and Jaap van Lagen (NED) secured their fourth overall victory of the season during the penultimate Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux weekend of the season. On Sunday, following a frantic race, the Porsche veteran emerged victorious at the Hockenheim circuit, where the Maastricht-based squad was back in action for the first time since 2022.

A journey of around 350 kilometres brought RaceArt to the Hockenheimring, situated in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. There, the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux formed part of a packed weekend. The highly competitive single-make series was part of the support bill for the International GT Open, alongside the Supercar Challenge, amongst others. The team’s last outing at the Hockenheimring in that championship was in 2022, when Roger Grouwels drove the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 to a podium finish.

Four years later, RaceArt returned to the circuit – which for many years served as the permanent home of Formula 1 in Germany – with Van Lagen, Joep Breedveld (both NED) and Arthur Peters (BEL). For the three drivers, this penultimate weekend of the season was of great importance: with the end of the championship in sight, every single point counts in the battle for the title.

Van Lagen got off to a flying start and secured pole position for both races in Saturday morning’s qualifying session. Breedveld and Peters, in turn, qualified fifth and seventh respectively in the Rookie classification.

Later that afternoon, the first race of the weekend got underway, with Van Lagen starting from the front row. Unfortunately, following contact during a battle on the opening lap, the veteran suffered a cooling system problem, forcing him to retire early.

Meanwhile, Breedveld showed his most competitive side and fiercely fought his way forward in the opening stages, before engaging in a spectacular battle with Austrian guest driver Felix Neuhofer across several laps. He eventually finished ninth overall and fifth in the Rookie class. Peters finished seventh in the Rookie class, after receiving a five-second time penalty for track limits.

On Sunday, Van Lagen took his revenge for his early Saturday retirement in the best possible way. Once again, he started from pole position, but this time he got off to a flying start and was unbeatable for the rest of the race. This was despite a chaotic race, in which an incident at the tail of the field on the opening lap led to a red flag. After the restart, the safety car made a second appearance, but Van Lagen maintained the lead throughout and secured his fourth win of the season.

The battle for the podium in the Rookie category proved to be thoroughly entertaining. Breedveld fell back in the opening stages in difficult conditions, but then fought his way back to third place in fine style. Peters just missed out on the podium and finished fourth.

With the season finale at Circuit Zolder on the horizon, Van Lagen still has a chance of retaining his title, but as a result of his retirement, he now has to make up a 24-point deficit.

The battle for the Rookie title remains as tight as ever. Five drivers, including Breedveld and Peters, are still in contention for the championship. Breedveld is in the strongest position out of the two RaceArt drivers: he sits in second, just three points off the lead. A similar scenario applies in the battle for the team standings, where RaceArt are also second, 17 points behind.

The Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux season will reach its climax from 16 to 18 October at Circuit Zolder, where the championship forms part of the support programme for the NASCAR Euro Series.

Drivers’ comments:

Jaap van Lagen: “A weekend of ups and downs – let’s put it that way. In qualifying, I was about to start my first lap, but my dashboard cut out at the first corner. No indicator light for changing gear, I didn’t know which gear I was in, and I couldn’t see any lap times or sector times. I drove entirely by feel and, luckily, still managed to secure pole position twice. That’s fantastic, of course. In Race 1 I had a mediocre start, but things went wrong at the hairpin. After making contact with Marczak, I was forced to retire with a punctured radiator. He went on to take the win and has now opened up a huge lead in the championship. That is very disappointing, of course. I don’t entirely agree with how that turned out, but on Sunday I was given another chance. Despite two safety car periods, I completely dictated the pace and was the fastest on the grid. The car was superb. Kudos to the whole team. They worked incredibly hard and sorted out the dashboard issue. All in all, we finished the weekend well, but because we didn’t score any points on Saturday, the gap in the standings is now 24 points. I’ll have to win twice at Zolder and Marczak would have to retire once for me to clinch the title. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll finish second, and I’d find that rather disappointing. I’ve had a lot of bad luck this year. But anyway, it’s not over yet. It’s still possible.”

Joep Breedveld: This weekend can be summed up in one sentence: the potential was there, but we didn’t just quite pull it off. I think this was the weekend with the best pace of the year so far. I set the second-fastest time overall in the second Free Practice session, and the data all looked good too. Unfortunately, qualifying didn’t quite go my way.I encountered a double yellow flag on my first set of tyres and was also impeded. After that, on the second set, I perhaps put a bit too much pressure on myself. As a result, I made a few mistakes and had two lap times disallowed for track limits. So I had to start from the back. The first race was positive, though. Started thirteenth, finished ninth. The pace was absolutely spot on. The second race was a bit more disappointing. I started on slicks, but it started to rain. Then, during the red flag, a number of drivers behind me switched to wet tyres. So they overtook me, and after that I had to spend a large part of the race catching up with them again. I eventually finished eighth. That was a bit of a let-down, partly because I simply found the conditions very tricky. We’ve learnt a lot from this weekend and, in terms of pace, it was very positive. We’ll take that with us into the final weekend. We’ll regroup and make the most of our preparations so that we’re right up there at Zolder.  

Arthur Peters:  “Hockenheim was a new circuit for me. I had never driven there before, so it took a bit of getting used to. We were a bit off the pace in the first Free Practice session, but we were in better shape in the second session. Qualifying didn’t go so well. It was quite hectic, which meant I couldn’t put in the perfect lap. I also had a bit of bad luck with the traffic. After that, we still tried to make the most of the races. Race 1 was actually quite good. There were a few good battles. It was a shame about the time penalty, which cost me a position. Race 2 was the most interesting race of the whole weekend. It started raining heavily quite early on, and then there was an incident and a red flag. We came in and, together with the engineer, made the decision to switch to wet tyres. We had nothing to lose. At the restart, it was still raining and we gained massively from it. I was running seventh overall and second in the Rookie class. Unfortunately, it then stopped raining and a dry line formed very quickly. By then, my wet tyres really didn’t have the grip of the slicks anymore and I lost a few places. That’s a shame, but we’ve learnt a lot from it.”