FIA GT1 – Spa – Qualifying Session

The usual three sessions of qualifying this morning saw 24 cars on the GT1 running order for the first time since Abu Dhabi with the reappearance of the #14 Phoenix Carsport Vette, back after its fiery demise at Silverstone.

The first session then would see 8 cars fall by the wayside and a mixed bag they proved to be with a pair of Maseratis Bertolini in the ballasted #1 Vitaphone car and Heger in the #33 Triple H MC12, Palttala’s #41 Marc VDS Ford, Tomas Enge’s #7 Young Driver Aston, Basseng’s #37 Lamborghini (missing out on the cut by a single thousandth of a second) and a trio of Nissans, both of the Sumo Power GT cars and the #3 Swiss racing GT-R of Karl Wendlinger – balance of performance strikes again it seems!

16 cars then progressed to session 2 and a further 8 were doomed to the cut – Pertti Kuismanen was well off the pace in the #12 Mad Croc Corvette and finished the session 16^th fastest, over a second shy of the car ahead and more than 3 seconds from the cut mark.

Also well short were the last of the GT-R’s, Nilsson in the #4 SRT Nissan and Piccini in the #14 Vette.  The remaining five fell short by less than half a second but that slim margin accounted for both Matech Fords, the #9 Hexis Aston, the remaining #2 Vitaphone Maserati and the #24 Reiter Lamborghini.

So then to the final 8 for pole in this afternoon’s Qualifying race (still a format which bewilders the fans trackside by the way). Christopher Nygaard would prop up the final order, the #8 Aston’s 2:19.755 would be over 2 seconds short of the required mark.

Seventh quickest would be the last of the Astons, Hirschi with a 2:19.062.

Last of the Fords was next up – Maxime Martin 6^th quickest in the #40 Marc VDS machine (2:18.471) with Mike Hezemans’ #13 Corvette just ahead on the grid (2:18.373).

Bert Longin will be on the second row of the grid for his home race, 2:18.322 for the #34 Triple H MC12.  He’ll be alongside Ricard Zonta’s #24 Reiter Lamborghini.

And it’s another Lamborghini on the outside of the front row, Nicky Pastorelli popping up with a 2:17.812, still 2 tenths shy though of pole man Xavier Maassen, another local man of course, in the #11 Mad Croc Vette with a 2.17.605.

Xavier Maassen:

“Yeah, I’m really delighted. It’s been a difficult season for us – in five rounds I’ve had four different team mates, which is every time a difficult position to be in, but that’s the way the championship is right now, and economics, so we’re trying to make the best of it and we’ve been knocking on the door for some time.

“I’m really delighted, really really delighted, it’s like a relief now to finally get a good result and to be on pole position now especially on this track, which is brilliant as it’s my home track and if you have a good car here it’s so incredibly nice.

“The set up we had was the base set up we wanted to start with, we didn’t change a lot and the car was already good. The team did an awesome job because the car was really perfect, and to have such a good car at this track is so nice; when you go through Eau Rouge it’s really cool.”