FIA GT3 Championship – Dubai – Preview
Contrasts What a contrast, in every way, with the conclusion of the maiden GT3 Championship last year. The 2006 Championship ended in the rain at Mugello, in September, with two victories for Sean Edwards in the Tech 9 Porsche (accompanied by Phil Keen). That vaulted Edwards ahead of Andrea Ceccato and Stefano Livio in the Racing Box Dodge Viper, and Patrick Bornhauser got ahead of the Italians too – so Sean Edwards was the maiden FIA GT3 Champion, and his prize was a drive in Tech 9’s GT2 Porsche in 2007. The 2007 points table doesn’t really feature Porsches and Vipers, certainly at the top. 2007 Driver Points Before Dubai
Moser / Vannelet Kessel Racing Ferrari 47
Pirri / Von Gartzen Martini Callaway Corvette 39
Peyroles / Ruffier Riverside Corvette 31
Frassinetti / Alessi BMS Aston Martin 20
Jirik / Janis S-Berg Lamborghini 19
Daoudi / Khan JMB Ferrari 16
Williams Trackspeed Porsche 14
Ellis / Morris RPM Viper 14
Dubrulle / Navarro First Racing Lamborghini 13 Moser and Vannelet began with two wins at Silverstone in May (above), and added a third (rather luckily) at Monza, while Pirri and von Gartzen have two wins to their credit (Monza and Brno), Khan and Daoudi have one (Bucharest), Bera and van Campenhoudt have just the one points-scoring finish in a Ford GT (a win at Bucharest), and Ruffier and Peyroles have one win too (Brno). With 20 points on offer in Dubai, the top three pairs are all in contention for the title, but realistically it’s between Mosler / Vannelet and Pirri / von Gartzen. If the #38 Ferrari wins the first race, on Friday afternoon, that will be the title sewn up. Oddly, the vastly improved (over 2006) Lamborghinis have yet to take a win this season, and although there are only three of them racing this weekend (no First Racing cars), one of the S-Berg cars has Jean-Denis Deletraz at the wheel, with Maranello Challenge Champion Lloyd La Marca: Deletraz knows the track well, having won here at the end of 2006, in the Phoenix Racing Aston Martin DBR9. This track is a real track, as fantastic as Spa or Suzuka,” says Deletraz. “It is over five kilometres long, with very fast corners for really big-hearted drivers, as well as more technical parts. And with the sand on the track, it is always very slippery. It is great to drive there, I love it!” Two long straights might favour the powerful Corvettes, and Gilles Vannelet hopes that “the Corvettes will not be as fast as in Brno. Since the beginning of the season it has been really close on each track, but it Brno the Corvettes were faster than anyone else.” They were very quick at Monza too – where Pirri and von Gartzen lost out on a second win of that weekend after running right out of fuel in the second race. But for that incident, they would be ahead of the Ferrari pair now. Arnaud Peyroles has “the feeling that the others are not thinking about us. They are focused on each other, and have forgotten us. In fact we are going to be the first spectators of the strong fight between Moser / Vannelet and Pirri / von Gartzen. You never know, before the last round of the Formula One this year, nobody was betting on Raïkkonen. So we could be the Raïkkonen of the FIA GT3 European Championship!” The final meeting of the second GT3 season is enlivened by the appearance of two Apex Motorsport Jaguars for the first time. Neil Cunningham shares one with Karim Al-Azhari , with Stuart Scott and Chris Ryan in the other. Can they make an impact first time out? Can the Vipers perform as well as they did at Monza? The meeting gets underway, for the GT3s, on Thursday morning, with the races both starting at 16.00 local time, one on Friday the last of the season on Saturday. | 
