Beitske Visser secures pole, podium finish on Toyota GR Cup Spain debut

Beitske Visser impressed on her debut in Toyota GR Cup Spain, securing a pole position and a podium in Motorland Aragon, showcasing strong one-lap pace and racecraft on her first outing in the car.

Photo credits: Toyota GR Spain

Beitske Visser returned to action with an excellent debut weekend in Toyota GR Cup Spain. Driving for RX Pro Racing, Visser claimed pole position on her debut in the championship before battling technical issues in race one on her way to a fourth-place finish. Narrowly missing out on back-to-back pole positions in race two, Visser led a number of laps as she closed out the event with a third-place result at Motorland Aragon.

Visser’s career has been extensive with the Dutch driver having claimed victories in open wheel machinery, while also racing at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. More recently, Visser has teamed up with GITI Tire Motorsport by WS Racing at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, piloting an SP8T class BMW M4 GT4 in an all-female squad. Now Visser has embarked on a new challenge in the one-make Toyota GR Cup Spain series with RX Pro Racing.

Launched in 2024, Toyota GR Cup Spain provides close racing in competitive fields while offering cash prizes to the top finishers both overall, and in sub-divisions such as the female trophy. Each race weekend features two qualifying sessions and a pair of races as the championship visits some of the most iconic circuits in Southern Europe.

Visser began her weekend on the front foot with a strong showing across Friday’s two test sessions. In the first, two-hour session, the RX Pro Racing driver set the second fastest time while clocking the quickest sector two of the entire field. Improving upon her best lap time by over half a second in the final one-hour session, Visser ended the day with the second fastest time and had firmly established herself as a frontrunning driver.

The first qualifying session of the weekend took place on Saturday morning and all drivers initially found it challenging to match their testing benchmarks. Visser was sitting in sixth position as she pitted in the closing stages of the session. Allowing her tyres to cool, Beitske then went back on track for one final flying lap. Improving in three of the four sectors, including an overall best time in sector two, Visser claimed pole position by a sizeable margin of four tenths of a second.

Photo credits: Toyota GR Spain

For the opening round of the Toyota GR Cup Spain season, Visser started from pole position and made an excellent start to immediately gap the drivers behind. The Dutch had opened up a margin of almost one second before the safety car was deployed after Santiago Castilla had stopped on the circuit.

When the racing resumed, Visser made a good restart but the powerful slipstream effect was keeping her rivals in touch. A three-wide battle for second then ensued and this allowed the RX Pro Racing driver to maintain the lead while teammate Daniel Losada was in second position. After running deep at the end of the long back straight, Visser lost the lead to Losada at the end of lap three.

Marcos De Diego was now right behind and the Eficar Team racer made a good overtake on lap four to claim the runner-up spot. The top-six drivers had now broken away from the pack and were fighting hard in typical close-quarters racing of the single-make championship. As the battling continued, Visser fell behind Tomas Pregliasco on lap seven with Losada now having built a margin at the head of the field.

Sandro Perez was lapping quickly behind Visser and after he moved ahead on lap eight, Beitske was down to fifth position. However, Perez was then handed a five second time penalty for exceeding track limits which promoted the RX Pro Racing driver back into a net fourth-position. Visser was still fighting hard and an excellent move at turn one on lap nine briefly saw her move into third, before settling into fourth ahead of Perez.

Visser’s late race speed allowed her to challenge De Diego for the final spot on the podium during the last lap, however she just ran out of time to make a move and therefore took the checkered flag in fourth position to complete a positive debut race in the series despite battling a small technical issue.

Photo credits: Toyota GR Spain

The second qualifying session took place on Sunday morning with cool conditions at Motorland Aragon. Visser was immediately on the pace and quickly jumped to the top of the times by setting the fastest lap of any driver in the event so far. The RX Pro Racing driver’s time of a 2:21.332 was almost one and a half seconds quicker than her pole time from the previous day.

Looking to improve further, Visser gained a further two tenths of a second on her next lap before it was removed for track limit infringements. Beitske was still set to claim back-to-back pole positions before a final flying lap from Marcos De Diego saw the Eficar Team driver set a time of a 2:21.278. Visser’s earlier time remained second fastest and therefore she secured a front-row starting spot for race two.

As the lights went out for the second race of the weekend, Visser replicated her excellent start from race one and immediately moved into the lead. Marcos De Diego fought back during the opening lap and reclaimed top spot with Beitske holding the runner-up position. In the early stages of the race, De Diego, Visser and Antonio Albacete started to break clear from the rest of the field and this was aided by an incident involving Tomas Pregliasco and Sandro Perez.

The leading trio continued to race smartly and this extended their margin further as Visser set the overall best sectors one and two on lap three. A great move on lap five saw Visser claim the lead with Albacete following her through into second position. The ME-PRE driver was determined to challenge for the lead, but Visser held on well with some smart defensive driving.

On lap ten, a small error from Visser allowed both Albacete and De Diego to move ahead with the Dutch driver now at the rear of the three-car battle. Albacete began to open up a small lead in the closing stages and with Visser and De Diego fighting hard for second position, the young Spanish driver looked assured of the victory. A fantastic battle for the runner-up spot ended with the Eficar Team racer holding on with Beitske taking the checkered flag in third.

Visser enjoyed a strong debut weekend in Toyota GR Cup Spain as she finished on the podium at Motorland Aragon. Beitske’s one-lap pace was particularly impressive and after sharpening her racecraft in close battles, she will now be targeting the top step of the podium. The next round of the championship takes place at Circuito de Navarra on the weekend of 3rd/4th May.

Photo credits: Toyota GR Spain