Italian GT, Vallelunga – Race Reports
An Interesting Start Race 1 "Audi win, BMW convincing"
The start of the 2012 Italian GT Championship saw pleasant weather greeting the Autodromo di Vallelunga late on Saturday afternoon for the first race of the season; no time penalties for this one, so we could have a close look at how fast every driver was and how the cars both old and new would adapt to the new Avon tyres.  |
The first start of the season was the usual ‘Italian’ affair, with pretty much everybody out of position; so much so, in fact, that Sonvico grabbed the lead from Colombo well before the start finish line. Third was the second Audi of Frassineti, then the 458 of Comandini who was sandwiched" by the BMW and the second Audi. Fifth and sixth were the two Porsches of Monti and Barri, then the wild card 458 of Lyons and Michela Cerruti in the second BMW. The GT2 leader was Coggiola, while in the Cup class Sanna grabbed the lead with a good move under braking from Granzotto.
The first laps were quite uneventful with no-one seemingly able to escape or take a safe margin, but the dramas were not far ahead; caught by the TV cameras, Sanna outbraked himself at the Cimini 1 curve, but a strange smoke soon appeared from the right left corner of the Lamborghini. It was indeed a puncture, quite strange after only five minutes of the race, and a full lap was lost trying to get the car back to the pits. But some laps later Sanna parked his car around the track, with an unspecified mechanical issue - clearly not the best start to defend the 2011 crown by the Imperiale Racing team, and a clean sweep of the podium for the Cup class by Porsche would be the result.
After ten minutes things were changing fast. The Avon tyres were clearly playing a major role, with the Porsche struggling with grip and consumption - both Barri and Monti starting to lose almost one second per lap from the Audi and the BMW at the front and struggling badly also to keep up with the heaviest car in the field, the Ferrari 458 of Comandini. Upfront Sonvico had built a safe margin by clocking fast lap after fast lap, and by the time the pit window opened he had almost ten seconds in hand over Biagi and Frassineti, who battled for all the first part of the race. Comandini was almost 20 seconds down and the Porsches were now more than 40 seconds down.
The mandatory pitstops didn’t have much effect on the standings, with Montanari-(Sonvico) still leading by ten seconds from Biagi-(Colombo) and Di Benedetto-(Frassineti). Fourth was the "lonely" Ferrari of Fornaroli-(Comandini), then Balzan-(Barri) and Passuti-(Monti) in the struggling Porsches and Liberati-(Cerruti) in the second BMW. Things remained relatively stable thereafter, with Montanari keeping the lead easily with no major problems, crossing the chequered flag first and beginning the 2012 Championship in the best possible way.
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Biagi finished second, and despite the best efforts of Di Benedetto the BMW was not anytime under major pressure and the newcomer Roal Motorsport BMW team scored some good points. Di Benedetto finished third in the second Audi, fourth was the VIta4one Ferrari of Fornaroli, fifth the Porsche of Balzan, and sixth a fast recovering Liberati in the second BMW, who caught and passed Passuti in the second Porsche. Bernoldi finished eighth after a quiet race. The GT2 class was decided by a mistake by the Coggiola brothers during the pit stop - they outbraked themselves in the pit and hit a small tower, damaging the car and losing a lap - so it was an easy win for the 458 of Rocca-Romanini, but a full lap down all the GT3 cars.
The Cup class with the retirement of the Gallardo was a walkover win by Granzotto-Cicognani, from Donaviti-Bellini and Gaiotto-Magli, all from the Antonelli team.
Sunday’s race would see the introduction of time penalties and could shake up the order, but clearly for now it was an Audi vs BMW battle; with Porsche seemingly in tyre trouble and Ferrari struggling badly with its weight (almost 100kg more than the BMW). Race 2 “Rain, chaos and BMW first”
After a pretty uneventful and quite boring Race 1, the Sunday one was much, much better; featuring a mix of rain, tactics, the usual “Italian casino” and the first victory in the history of Italian GT for BMW.
It transpired that the retirement in Race 1 for the 2011 GT Cup champions Sanna-Stancheris and their Lamborghini was due partially to the puncture in the early stages braking some underfloor parts, but was more down to some electrical gremlins in the engine compartment, which necessitated an overnight change.
The day had been an overcast one since the morning races and the much-threatened rain was clearly only moments away as the cars moved off, but a “wet race” had been declared. The green flag flew, and it was, again, a “pretty interesting” start with everyone seeming to take any spot but the right one. The BMW front row was very soon broken, with Biagi first but Liberati down to third after Balzan found the right gap to establish himself second. Di Benedetto was fourth in the first of the Audis, then Bernoldi, Montanari, Passuti, Fornaroli and Romanini, first in GT2. Stancheris was the leader in the Cup class.
Soon Biagi and Balzan begin to escape from the pack, and soon too the first drops of rain began to fall. Behind the top duo Liberati wais now clear of the Audi and the Ferraris behind, and, rejuvenated after Saturday’s very bad race, Bernoldi overtook Di Benedetto for the fourth overall spot. Di Benedetto was so surprised by the Brazilian’s move that he left the door wide open for his teammate too, so Montanari was now fifth. The drops of rain were by now a more constant drizzle, but it was not yet time for rain tyres. Di Benedetto outbraked himself at the Trincea curve and lost more places – he was now eighth and last in GT3. Upfront, unseen by the live TV pictures, Balzan grabbed the lead and soon enough began to escape from the BMW duo, more than happy with the very tricky conditions of the track. Liberati clearly liked the conditions too and soon closed the gap to his teammate Biagi and overtook him for the second spot. The top trio was now about 15 seconds clear from everybody else, with Romanini still leading GT2 and Stancheris miles away in front of the Cup class.
The drizzle became a downpour in a matter of seconds, but the pitstop window was not yet open and the teams now had to decide whether to stop for rain tyres or leave the cars out until the drive change. Passuti in the second Porsche was the first one to decide to stop, soon followed by GT2 leader Romanini; would this choice pay dividends later? The conditions were now pretty much undriveable with slicks tyres; Balzan aquaplaning his Porsche at the end of the longest straight of the track, but managing to find the last centimeter of tarmac in the runoff area and amazingly keep the lead. As the pitstop window opened, it was as bad as an Asian monsoon and the leaders were still out on slicks! Clearly a good job by the Avon tyres… Biagi stopped in the pit about 40 seconds before the pit stop window opened, and he would have to stop again to give the car to Colombo. Meanwhile, Liberati and Di Benedetto were aquaplaning themselves, as Balzan had a lap previously. Now the situation was as chaotic as you can imagine – Passuti, on rain tyres, left the track at the fastest point of the circuit and finished his race in the barrier, thankfully with no big damage, while Fornaroli was the other victim of the bad conditions and finished his race too.
The next ten minutes were pretty much a guessing game; guessing who was in the lead, who had changed the tyres and the drivers… But finally the situation began to clear itself; Barri-(Balzan) was still leading from Colombo-(Biagi), second despite two stops. Cerruti-(Liberati) was third, then Lyons-(Bernoldi), Rocca-(Romanini), leader in GT2, Sonvico-(Montanari) and Sanna-(Stancheris), leader in the Cup Class. The dramas were not over because the cameras captured Barri’s 911 stopping just at the pit entry – what had happened? Later we discovered that the usual electrical gremlins had struck the Porsche gearbox and it required a lap to reset everything and restart; a sure win now becoming a desperate charge to the lower positions of the standings.
The closing stages of this chaotic race saw Colombo keeping the lead with no major problems, and winning the first race in the history of Italian GT for BMW. But the real battle was behind the first BMW; Cerruti couldn’t resist the hard charge by Lyons who managed to close the gap lap by lap to the BMW and grab the lady’s place in a most ungentlemanly move. And the lady wasn’t able to keep the lower spot of the podium either because Sonvico was on fire and overtook the BMW too. Was it over? Not quite, because Michela lost another place to the second Audi of Frassineti and in the last corner of the last lap the GT2 leader Rocca took Michela too. Barri in the recovering EbiMotors Porsche finally finished seventh overall, sixth in class. The Cup class was dominated by the Gallardo of Sanna-Stancheris with a convincing victory after the technical problems of Saturday’s race. The first round is over with a piece of history, a first victory for BMW, and with strong evidence that the new Avon tyres work very well for Audi and BMW while Porsche have to work to find the right balance, especially in the second part of the race. GT Cup is now a pretty easy job for Lamborghini, barring some technical problems. GT2 saw two victories for the lonely Ferrari in front of the Coggiola Porsche’s.
The next round takes place at the official Ferrari test track at Mugello on June 10th. Gabriele Tosi |
