FIA GT3, Jarama – Race Two Report
Schubert’s Need For Speed Satisfied

The second race from Jarama couldn’t have been more different from the first and essentially boiled down to a race-long duel between the #77 Need For Speed BMW Z4 and the #61 Prospeed Porsche, with Munich triumphing over Stuttgart by the end of the 60 minutes.

The second qualifying session had laid the seeds for this very different pattern, with the key players from race one starting in very different positions; the Argo Racing Lambo (pole in race one) was starting 23rd; the #101 Callaway Corvette (2nd) was on the fourth row; and the race winning #3 Team Rosberg Audi was only 20th. Instead, Marco Holzer had taken pole for the afternoon race in the #61 Porsche and lined up alongside Mike Parisy in the #16 Graff Racing Z06R. The luckless Marc VDS Mustang should have been third – representing a huge increase in form for the new car – but the homologation issue (essentially a typo in the paperwork) led to the disqualification of its times and its non-participation in either race.

Just the one formation lap this time around and it was Holzer who reached the first turn in the lead. Behind him though was the BMW Z4 in the hands of Claudia Huertgen and the veteran driver virtually pushed her younger compatriot round the tight right-hander. She had demoted Parisy in the process and Fred Makowiecki also found his way past in the #1 Hexis Aston before the field arrived at T2.

The lead quartet started to break away almost immediately, leaving a five-car stream fighting for fifth behind them. Huertgen was still glued to Holzer’s bumper and it was already clear that there would be no room for error. Indeed, the BMW was clearly happier through the corners and its yellow nose was alongside the blue and white GT3 R out of T3 on the third lap; Holzer managing to close the door in time.

As the battle at the front raged, things weren’t going so well elsewhere. The race-one winning Audi was slowly making its way to the pits and retirement after just five laps, while Philip Geipel’s Porsche debut ended in retirement after rear-ending the #17 Graff Corvette in the #12 Muehlner car. And Diego Alessi would also retire the #87 Chad Racing Ferrari (third in race one) by the side of the track ten minutes later after losing the alternator belt.

Huertgen kept the pressure on Holzer without let-up and the young Porsche driver couldn’t relax for a second. The lead two eventually dropped their pursuers and their now-private duel continued right up to the pit-stops after 36 minutes, the two cars entering and leaving the pits together and in the same order.

But things were destined to change very soon afterwards, with Csaba Walter taking just one lap to catch and pass Paul van Splunteren for the first – and what would prove to be the only – change for the race lead.

The fight for the lead may have been settled, but the fight for other positions was very much still on. Daniel Keilwitz was making progress in the #101 Corvette, taking sixth from the Ford GT of Mikko Eskelinen on lap 25 (having previously lost the position to the same car) and then moving up two places at the expense of Manuel Rodrigues and Joakim Lambotte; the #1 Hexis Aston having found the T1 gravel yet again on a difficult day for the team.

Not far behind, Joe Osborne was making the most of his final GT3 race for the foreseeable future (his budget having been exhausted) and moving up through the field with impressive assertiveness. He took the #11 Muehlner Porsche around the outside of the Ford on lap 28 for seventh and took sixth from Lambotte a lap later.

While Muehlner’s day was getting better, it was getting worse for both Argo and Hexis as Albert von Thurn und Taxis used the #2 Aston of Luc Paillard as a brake and punted the silver car into a spin. The Aston recovered in twelfth – rear bodywork trailing – but the #25 Lamborghini was limping round the track and dropping like a brick. It kept going, however, and finished 17th, a lap down.

With five minutes to go, Walter held a huge lead over van Splunteren, who was himself comfortably ahead of Keilwitz; now in third in the Callaway Corvette. Fourth place was not a comfortable place to be at this point, however, as Petri Lappalainen in the #60 Prospeed Porsche was under enormous pressure from Stephane Lemeret in the #6 Phoenix Audi.

The Belgian was alongside a couple of times, but the Finn – his car twitching and slithering around the tighter corners – held on. Eventually, however, the Audi prevailed and Lemeret quickly pulled away.

And now Osborne was with the Prospeed Porsche; the British driver harrying his opponent round the track and ready to pounce when Lappalainen made a slight mistake at T9 on the penultimate lap and nipped down the inside to claim an excellent fifth.

The #77 BMW Z4 crossed the line to take a famous victory, while van Splunteren brought the #61 Porsche home to a safe second. Third however, would not be decided until the final corner; Lemeret somehow catching and passing Keilwitz to snatch a dramatic third for Phoenix.

"I knew it was important to have a good start so I can stay in front of the Aston Martin," said Claudia Huertgen. "I got in front of the Corvette and I was able to follow Marco. In the middle of the race I tried to catch him but we have a one hour race so tried to save my tyres.  So then we wait.  For me it was a perfect race, we fought and he followed the line but we both know it is a one hour race.  The team have worked very hard and it was the same last year at Alpina.  we started at Silverstone and we were two seconds off the pace, so we have pushed hard together with BMW Motorsport and here at the third event we were quite near to the front.  It is also quite important regarding the tyres because only two cars use the Dunlop tyres and we've shown here that Dunlop have done a good job also."

"The car was very easy to drive for the whole second part of the race," added Csaba Walter. "I could pass the Porsche after two or three laps and then I had a good pace until the end of the race.  I just had to be careful to drive without any problems, keep the tyres and keep the car, so it was really good for me.  Claudia did a great job and the car was really consistent, I didn't have to push had, I just had to keep the speed and concentrate on the track.  After the problems I had last year the last few laps were very hard for me because I was thinking about the experiences last year where we had bad moments two or three times at the end of the race but this time we had good luck."

Further back, Mark Patterson completed his best drive of the year so far in the #22 United Autosports Audi; finishing eleventh after he and Mike Guasch had hauled the car from last after the first lap.

Zak Brown in the #23 sister car had earlier been forced out with a dramatic blow-out on the pit-straight that he did well to hold.

After six races of the 2010 season, four different marques have so far taken victory. The series now moves on to Paul Ricard – what price a fifth different winner?

MH