Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp secured a third place finish in the final European race of the FIA GT Championship season, although the pair could have taken victory in their Aston Martin DBR9 had it not been for a costly error mid0way though the race.

After Allan Simonsen was given a penalty and lost pole position, Wendlinger started the race from the front of the grid and held the lead through the early stages of the race before pitting to hand the car over to Sharp after 50 minutes of racing.

However, on only his second lap out of the pits, Sharp clipped a kerb and slid off into the tyre wall, losing around 30 seconds and slipping back to sixth place.

The Scot fought hard through the remainder of his stint and closed the gaps to the leaders down to less than 20 seconds, having climbed back into fourth place.

Wendlinger then took over for the run to the flag and worked his way into third place, where he came under pressure in the closing laps from Simonsen's Gigawave entered DBR9.

However, despite the Dane's best efforts, Wendlinger held on for a hard-earned podium finish.

“Ryan's mistake cost us more than twenty seconds, in the end we were just ten seconds behind,” Wendlinger reflected. “In view of this mishap I'm satisfied with third place. Unfortunately our tyres were not holding up as expected. Both during my first stint, when I was unable to gain an advantage of more than six seconds, and also subsequently, when Ryan and I had to push. That's why it was impossible to close in on Hezemans in the end. The tyres were already finished by then.”