GT Open, Valencia - Race One Report
Dominant Start For Barba & Kaffer

Alvaro Barba and Pierre Kaffer were the first winners of the 2010 International GT Open, as they dominated the opening round in Valencia in their AF Corse Ferrari F430.

In an action-packed race, made more difficult by humid and slippery track conditions and the traffic generated by the 43 cars in contention, the newly-created Spanish-German pair fought a close and lively duel with the Spanish GT (the two series racing together this weekend) Aurora Ferrari F430 of the Portuguese pair Alvaro Parente-Francisco Cruz Martins. An excellent third, second in the GT Open standings, was another Ferrari F430, the EdilCris-ran machine of Raffaele Giammaria-Enrico Toccacelo.

The first Porsche, the Autorlando car of Lietz-Roda, was fourth but the German make and the Italian team had the great satisfaction of seeing their new GT3 car winning the GTS category, with Thomas Gruber and Dimitris Deverikos beating the Ferraris of Couceiro-Frezza and Ortelli-Dayrault.

With the track still very humid but with most cars on slicks, problems begin even before the start, with Jim Matthews and Stefano Livio spinning on the formation lap. Poleman Jean Philippe Dayrault, meanwhile, found himself starting from the pits because of a misinterpretation of the rules regarding the start procedure. Maximo Cortés took the lead in the #35 430, but the safety car was out before completion of the first lap after a collision between Jack Gerber and Chris Niarchos.

“The guy who started way back in 24th didn’t realised the start had been aborted,” said Niarchos. “He flew past me at full race speed as we were all going steady at about 50kph.  He spun going into turn one and as I came around he came right across my path, leaving me with no option other than to T-bone him.”

At the restart, Cortés retained the lead but would be passed by Alvaro Barba, Alvaro Parente and Jordi Gené in the next few laps.

A close duel between the two Alvaros then began for the lead; the duo passing each other a couple of times in a contest made more exciting by being conducted while lapping slower cars. Gené was in fourth, then Philipp Peter, Enrico Toccacelo, Dimitris Deverikos, Max Wiser, Miguel De Castro, Gianluca Roda and Andrea Ceccato, while Raymond Narac ended his race in the gravel on lap five.

While the two leaders built up a serious advantage (over 20s) on the pack, Peter passed the Sunred of Gené for fourth and Roda, Pedro Couceiro and Luca Moro kicked off the round of driver changes.

After the mandatory stop, Kaffer led in the AF Corse Ferrari, nine seconds ahead of Francisco Cruz Martins in the ART car. Third was Michal Broniszewski, then Raffaele Giammaria, Lucas Guerrero, Miguel Amaral, Richard Lietz and Thomas Gruber, who led GTS with the Autorlando Porsche GT3 R.

Kaffer was not phazed by the on-track challenge from the Spanish Ferrari and went on to take the flag by 14 seconds at the end of the 70 minutes; and an impressive 60 seconds was his margin over the second GT Open contender. 

The debut race of the Aston Martin Vantage was ruined when Guerrero had a slight off and was then made to serve a drive-through for speeding in the pit lane, while Giammaria moved up to third and Lietz fourth, with Broniszewski finishing fifth, ahead of the Autorlando Porsche GT3 of Gruber, which won the GTS class on its debut.