Ferrari racer Michael Lyons concluded his maiden season in the International GT Open sixth in the GTS Class driver standings at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain over the weekend, 9th/10th November, thanks to a pair of consistently competitive points finishes for leading team AF Corse.Going into the final two rounds of the 2013 campaign in Barcelona with a mathematical chance of winning the GTS Class championship, the Felsted-based driver and Italian team-mate Matteo Beretta mounted a strong challenge but their title hopes were impacted by a difficult qualifying run.Even so, a top four class result in round 15 on Saturday and sixth in GTS on Sunday meant the pairing rounded-out their first season as team-mates equal on points with Belgium’s Maxime Soulet and only three points shy of the top four.In addition, the weekend’s two races also counted towards the Spanish GT Championship and the duo finished fourth and third overall respectively in the two races in terms of the domestic series battle. In the Spanish GT title fight, the AF Corse pairing ended the year in fourth position.“We had a mixed one this weekend”, said Michael, “The track evolution was quite different to what we expected, there were some historic cars out racing this weekend as well which made a difference to the way the track changed with the rubber laid down – it went a different way than we expected.“In general this year we have missed the boat a bit in qualifying but we always had good race pace, we knew all season we had good speed in race conditions and this weekend we proved that with the amount of overtaking we managed at a track where passing is very difficult.”Beretta ran in the opening qualifying session on Saturday, determining the grid order for round 15, and had to settle for the 11th fastest time in the GTS Class, 17th overall. In session two, Michael suffered with significant understeer and ended up a frustrated 16th quickest in class – 22nd overall.Making good progress during the early running of the first encounter, Beretta was up into eighth in GTS and 13th place overall prior to the pit-stop window opening at the end of lap 16. He stayed out on track for another four tours, as several of the front-runners started to make their driver changes, and ultimately handed the No.55 Ferrari over at the end of lap 20 from third in GTS and fifth overall.With around half an hour of the 70-minute race remaining Michael set about trying to fight his way up towards the class podium and as the race order stabilised following the stops, the 22-year-old was in seventh position in the outright classification and sixth in GTS.Becoming locked in a very tight battle with the sister AF Corse car of Filip Salaquarda and the similar Ferrari of Vyacheslav Maleev, as the trio diced the Super GT Corvette of Nicky Pastorelli managed to squeeze past Michael which demoted him to eighth overall. However, he did get ahead of Maleev on lap 30 to regain a place and move into fifth in class but the Russian soon hit back.Running sixth in GTS and eighth overall into the last lap, Michael then got ahead of Salaquarda on the final tour and also profited from a couple of post-race penalties for Maleev and one of the Super GT cars – promoting the Briton into fourth in class and fifth in the outright classification.Taking the opening stint for the final race of the season on Sunday morning, Michael made a superb getaway to rocket through the order into 10th in the GTS Class and 13th overall. He then gained two further places in one outstanding move around the outside at Turn Five to move into eighth in class and 11th overall prior to the emergence of the Safety Car.When racing resumed on lap five, with 40 minutes remaining on the clock, the Briton set about immediately challenging for the outright top 10 and he succeeded in the final sector – also gaining him seventh in GTS. Before too much longer, the Safety Car was required for a second time and when the action got back underway on lap 10 the pit window opened.Although Michael was scheduled to stop at that stage, the sister car of Salaquarda pitted instead and so the Essex racer had to remain on track for a couple more laps – eventually stopping at the end of lap 11 from sixth in GTS, eighth overall. After all the driver changes were completed, Beretta held station and remained there to the finish to add sixth in GTS to the previous day’s top four result.“I got an amazing start”, reflected Michael, “I knew I didn’t have much choice from where we were starting. It all opened up nicely for me as we got to the end of the pit wall, I shot down across the pit exit to get a good few places and then I got another at Turn Three and two more positions at Turn Five around the outside with a great move.“I made another place at the re-start and then we had a bit of an unfortunate situation where our team-mates made their stop after the second Safety Car – we were supposed to pit first so that had an impact on our race. From where we started though, sixth in class wasn’t a bad result.”He added: “We’ve been pretty unlucky over the course of the year, we had bad luck at Spa and at Monza and at the Nurburgring we were smashed off the track twice. It has been one of those years really but we’ve still shown our pace. I’ve improved my speed during the season, which I’m really pleased about, and that bodes well for more endurance stuff next year – onwards and upwards!”Final 2013 International GT Open – GTS Class Standings:6th Michael Lyons/Matteo Beretta, 44ptsFinal 2013 International GT Open Standings:14th Michael Lyons/Matteo Beretta, 80pts