FIA GT1, Silverstone – Qualifying Race Report
Müller & Enge Keep Their Heads To Win

Young Driver AMR drivers Tomas Enge and Alex Müller won the Qualifying Race at Silverstone this afternoon. A crash on the opening lap took away the chances of an exciting event and what followed was a rather uneventful race.

The opening lap was full of drama, with cars spinning and crashing into each other. Clivio Piccione spun his car on the first corner and then David Brabham, Darren Turner, Maxime Martin and Peter Dumbreck got into the first lap mayhem and returned to the pits with lots of damage.

As a result, the field was reduced to twelve cars after just a couple of corners.

Lucas Luhr had no problem, though, and moved into the lead after Andreas Zuber suffered a gearbox issue at the start. Alex Müller moved into second place, while Zuber followed in third.

Ten laps into the race, Luhr was still just a second ahead of Müller, with Zuber right behind them. Enrique Bernoldi and Andrea Piccini were in no man’s land, with several cars fighting for sixth behind them.

Just before the pit window opened, Andrea Piccini’s Aston Martin suffered a problem with one of its wheels; and just when the clock showed 25 minutes had been completed, the Italian came into the pit with a smoking DBR9.

Andreas Zuber then suffered a high-speed spin after he hit some fluids on the track at Brooklands, but after two 360 degree turns he rejoined the race and came into the pit for his stop.

Alex Müller came in on the same lap, while Lucas Luhr stayed out.

On lap 15 Luhr came in, but with Tomas Enge lapping quicker on the track and the Young Driver AMR team performing a quicker pit stop the Czech driver passed the Nissan and moved into the lead.

Michael Krumm returned to the track some six seconds behind Enge and knew he had half an hour to beat the Aston. But, despite putting in fast laps, Enge was able to consolidate his lead and save his tyres. On the following laps, the Nissan was quicker on the first and second sectors, but then lost the same amount of time on the final sector. As a result, the gap between Krumm and Enge was reduced, but very slowly.

Marc VDS Racing Team managed to bring back the #41 Ford GT to the race after long repairs, but as it was back on track in order to gain some grid positions in tomorrow’s Championship Race their second car was retired from the race.

In the final laps, Enge knew it was his race to lose and he slowed down a bit more. As a result, Krumm was able to get back even further, but the German saw the #7 Aston Martin on the horizon and knew he wasn’t going to win.

After 30 laps Enge crossed the line to win the Qualifying Race.

Michael Krumm finished second for JR Motorsports and Mike Hezemans secured third place for Exim Bank Team China.

Just before the chequered flag came out the race director confirmed that the first lap incident would be investigated after the race, but with the cars involved already at the back of today’s race not much will change.

MtC