FIA GT Championship – Nogaro – Race Report
55 Plays 50 And 47

A win for Mike Hezemans and Jean-Denis Deletraz at the tight Nogaro track leaves the GT1 driver points just about as close as they were before this race – although Thomas Biagi has some breathing space now, ahead of the massed hordes, going into the last round at Zolder.

1 Thomas Biagi 55
2 Andrea Bertolini 50
Mike Hezemans 50
Christian Montanari 50
Jean-Denis Deletraz 50
Miguel Ramos 50
Andrea Piccini 50
3 Ryan Sharp 47
Karl Wendlinger 47
4 Michael Bartels 39
5 Anthony Kumpen 35.5
Bert Longin 35.5

In GT2, the Muller / Vilander Ferrari was the only retirement (of the whole race) – but the sister car was victorious, leaving the points like this (Malucelli / Collard were second).

1 Toni Vilander 63
Dirk Müller 63
2 Stephane Ortelli 62
Gianmaria Bruni 62
3 Matteo Malucelli 59
Emmanuel Collard 59
4 Marcello Zani 35.5
5 Tim Mullen 34
6 Paolo Ruberti 33.5

So the Porsche pair could, in theory, still take the drivers’ title, which would be remarkable, bearing in mind how the season has evolved (eight wins for AF Corse, just one for the BMS Porsche, at Spa) – and also bearing in mind Ferrari’s tactics today.

Some more of the titles are now decided: Vitaphone wins GT1 teams for the third year running (AF Corse had walked GT2 teams some time ago), while Ben Aucott is the first ever winner of the Citation Cup, after winning here with Stephane Daoudi (even more of a professional driver than previous partner Alain Ferte).

So how did this one unfold?

Whatever the ins and outs of the odd (two) pit stop rule, the winners of an endurance race will be the team that races hardest and fastest for longest, with fewest (in this case no) delays. Today, that was Mike Hezemans and Jean-Denis Deletraz – but in an admittedly closely-packed grid, how on earth did they manage to win from the tenth starting position (1.4 seconds slower than Biagi and Lechner)?

“Qualifying was a complete drama, but the race was fantastic,” said the Dutchman. Set-up changes made all the difference (the C6.R just wasn’t using its tyres in qualifying), and he was fastest in the warm-up – and looked strong in the early going, even though overtaking is very difficult around the twisty 3 km Nogaro track. Hezemans looked particularly good under braking at the end of the back straight – although he was anyway off to a great start, eighth at the first corner and muscling past the Kumpen Corvette. The #4 never seemed to find the set-up for Nogaro, and even if ‘Ant and Bert’ get their points back from Oschersleben, they’re effectively out of the title race now (eighth place at the end, a lap down).

But even by lap 15, Hezemans was still eighth. Robert Lechner had made a great start in #36, getting ahead of Biagi’s Maserati, but with team owner (at Jetalliance) Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer) filling in with the middle stint, #36 was never a realistic contender for the win. Nevertheless, Lechner was still leading at 15 laps, by which time the leading bunch had actually closed up. There had been no changes of position for the first ten laps – run in the order Lechner, Biagi, Montanari, Pier Guidi.....

.. Wendlinger (dropping back then catching up again), Babini, Bertolini, Hezemans, Kumpen and Bouchut.

A great snarling bunch of GT1s – and no sign yet of which one might win.

Pier Guidi in #12 Playteam MC12 made the first move, at the end of the back straight, and Biagi was thinking about a similar move for the lead – but Montanari restored the status quo on the fifteenth lap, at which point Bouchut in the Lamborghini was less than nine seconds behind Lechner.

Lap 17 and Biagi did take the lead – and rushed off into the distance. He pulled out five seconds on Lechner, who then pitted (lap 20). Pier Guidi had already pitted – so the rhythm of the race was already disturbed.

Biagi led to the 45 minute mark, just before which dark horse Hezemans was… second, only three seconds off the lead. He’d passed Bertolini in #11 Playteam Maserati, then he and Karl Wendlinger together jumped Fabio Babini (in what was otherwise looking like a strong run for the #23 BMS DBR9), and although Bertolini re-passed Hezemans, pit stops for Lechner and Wendlinger left the #5 Corvette fourth, and then Hezemans and Babini both passed a struggling Bertolini. The BMS Aston certainly seemed to be making better use of its Pirellis this time than were the Playteam Maseratis, Bertolini pitting earlier than planned, leaving Piccini a long middle stint.

So now, at lap 24, we had the two Vitaphone Maseratis leading the Hezemans Corvette: these would turn out to be the podium finishers, but not in this order. Hezemans moved past Montanari on lap 27, just before Biagi pitted – so #5 had moved from tenth to first.

Look out – here comes Fabio Babini! The BMS Aston had mimicked Hezemans’ move to the front (helped by others pitting) and towards the end of the long, opening stint for these two cars, he gobbled up four or five seconds on #5, and passed it, to lead. Hezemans pitted straight away.

The opening stops had finally unravelled, and this was the order (lap 41) after Babini pitted (everyone taking tyres – but the BMS stop taking far too long):

Deletraz – 4.7 – Bartels – 4.2 – Sharp – 12.5 – Ramos – 1 – Giannocarro – 1 Davies – 7 - Piccini – 2 - Longin – almost nothing – Mucke.

Four laps later (with Giannocarro already having made #12’s second stop) it was:

Deletraz – 4.3 – Bartels – 12.5 – Sharp – 11 – Ramos – 1 – Davies – 9 - Piccini – 2 - Longin – 1 – Mucke.

Second stops got going after that – Sharp the first man in, having lost significant ground (as the figures show).

Deletraz hadn’t though: he was holding the gap to Bartels, and #5 was really looking like the race winner now.

With Jamie Davies stuck behind the Miguel Ramos #2 Vitaphone Maserati, what we had at this point, after Sharp’s early (second) stop, was the 1-2-3-4.

Deletraz kept his stint going significantly longer than the Vitaphone middle stinters, and once Hezemans took over at the end of lap 63 (with almost everyone staying on the same tyres to the end), the positions were:

Hezemans – 5.8 – Biagi – 12 – Piccini – 10 – Longin – 0.3 – Montanari – 3 – Babini – 3 – Wendlinger – 7 – Pier Guidi.

The odd ones out were Piccini and Longin, neither of whom had pitted (for their cars’ second stops). When they did, #5 (Hezemans) led from #1 (Biagi) and #2 (Montanari) – and that was almost that. Babini was a fine fourth for BMS, and he held off Wendlinger (bemoaning the 70 kg of ballast in #33, and having to change tyres again), while Pier Guidi let Bertolini through to gain a place at the end – but for whatever reason the #11 MC12 wasn’t as fast as expected, and Piccini / Bertolini are back in the 50 point pack in the title race, despite using team tactics to lose weight after Brno. Pier Guidi was much faster today: 35 kg can’t make that much difference can it?

“I gave the car to Jean-Denis, and he did a fantastic job,” said Mike Hezemans. “The final stint was fine, I could easily do 1:27 laps, it was just easy driving until the end.”

“For the whole race the car was really consistent and fantastic to drive,” added J-DD. “Since this morning in the warm-up I felt we had a good car for the race. After Mike’s fantastic job at the beginning, I just had to hold on to the lead and we won. It’s nice as the title is still open for the last race of the Championship, with five cars able to fight, and we promise to do our best to try to win again, and to try to catch the number one. It’s nice to have the car on the poster for an event, and after this result, it proved that it was the right decision to put us there ! ”

Michael Bartels suggested that “the Corvette has a lot of experience in Zolder, while the Maserati has never been there before, a completely new circuit for us. But I am quite optimistic. With 30 kg in the car and these Michelin tyres I think we can be very optimistic.”

GT2 would probably have been an AF Corse 1-2 – except that Toni Vilander stopped on the track after 37 laps with no drive. Bruni and Ortelli managed to win even though they copped a stop and go penalty, for using an outside battery to start the car on the grid. There was also some confusion between the two AF Corse cars.

“I don’t think we should do that again in Zolder or our friends in the Porsche will be enjoying it a lot!” commented Stephane Ortelli “We had to push very hard to get back after the stop and go penalty, but we had the best car, the best team, and we were quickest.”

Emmanuel Collard and Matteo Malucelli finished second, but the Frenchman was distinctly unimpressed with the behaviour of the Ferrari drivers in the #59 car – the one that is ellegedly present to take points off the Porsche drivers.

“We were touching each other many times and it’s not really fair,” he remarked. But the Aguas / Peter Ferrari came off worse, with a battered rear end – and only sixth at the finish.

Scuderia Ecosse had its best race of the season, and the team cars finished third and fourth. Andrew Kirkaldy had to start from the pit lane after engine trouble in the warm-up, but he and Rob Bell charged through to the podium, while Tim Mullen and Darren Turner finished fourth.

“We lost some time in the first pit-stop and ended up with an 18 second deficit to #62 (Turner/Mullen) but Rob (Bell) did a fantastic middle stint and pulled back ten seconds,” explains Kirkaldy. “We were ahead again after the final pit-stops, running in third. I tried to catch Collard’s Porsche but I couldn’t make enough headway in the time we had left so we crossed the line third. I’m really pleased with the result; starting in the pitlane and finishing on the podium is excellent!”

Darren Turner had to start on the tyres he’d flat-spotted in qualifying, so that meant a short first stint, which compromised the strategy for #62.

Two good finishes and the Scottish team has split BMS and Edil Cris in the teams’ points, with one race left. That’s at Zolder, with much still to be decided. The Collard / Malucelli pair is hoping for rain: that might be their only chance to snatch an unlikely win in the drivers’ championship.