FIA GT, Brno – Race Report
Jetalliance Fends Off Bouchut’s Charge

Apologies for the lateness of this report

To a large extent, the result of the main race of the weekend in the Czech Republic was decided at the first corner of the first lap – for both classes – when several front-runners were taken out in a quick, but costly, series of incidents.

Alan Simonsen was starting the race buoyed by his fastest time in the morning warm-up; but the #10 Gigawave Aston Martin DBR9 was to be one of four first-lap retirements - having been hit first by a Jetalliance Aston Martin and then by the Rbimmo Saleen and finally by the #2 Masarati. The Dane managed to get the stricken car back to the pits, but the team quickly realised that its race was run and sadly pulled down the garage door.

Also out were both Saleens and the pole-sitting CR-Scuderia of Dirk Müller, for whom it was a case of, “Wrong place, wrong time!

“I got a good start but as I went into turn one I had Collard’s Porsche on the inside and Bruni’s Ferrari in the outside. That was okay, but suddenly I had a spinning Maserati in front of me; I had nowhere left to go so I had no choice but to t-bone it pretty hard; and that was effectively the end of my race. I made it back to the pits but there was too much damage to continue. It’s very disappointing to retire from a race when it is not your fault. Sometimes this happens in motorsport and it is a shame as we should have been on for a good result. I would like to thank the team for the weekend; I believe we had the car and the team to win the race today.”

Mike Hezemans, at the wheel of the #6 Phoenix Racing Corvette, had been hit by Anthony Kumpen’s Saleen S7, but was able to continue – unlike his assailant; “At the start, I was quicker than Karl (Wendlinger), then I almost hit him twice and had to brake a lot in the first corner. Then Alex (Müller) pushed me - I went sideways, then Anthony ran into me and the front of the car was broken.  The car, although it looked badly damaged, worked quite well. It was fine in the left corners, but had problems going right. The Corvette is a very tough car. Kumpen’s car was completely broken.”

Both Jetalliance cars emerged unscathed and immediately established an effective one-two; Wendlinger pulling out a lead as Müller adopted a defensive attitude to hold back his pursuers; more specifically Marcel Fässler in the #5 Phoenix Z06. Xavier Maassen was in fourth in the #3 SRT Corvette, with the #37 Ferrari 550 Maranello of Martin Basso in fifth.

In GT2, Gianmaria Bruni was taking full advantage of the removal of the #56 CRS Ferrari by taking the lead, while Tim Mullen moved from fourth to second in the surviving Sky-sponsored Ferrari.

The race immediately settled down into a period of consolidation, during which very position changes were noted. By lap ten, the order was 33, 36, 5, 3, 1, 37, 2, 50, 12, 61, 55, 95, 79, 6, 60, 78, 57, 59, 62, 51, 101, 77 and 88. Mike Hezemans had already pitted in the #6 to hand over to Jean-Denis Deletraz, hence its lowly position at this stage.

Alexandre Negrao, meanwhile, was finding things a bit draughty in the #2 Vitaphone Maserati, having lost a door following the earlier ruff’n tumble; but a stop on lap ten sorted that out.

It was a similar story in GT2, with Bruni rapidly pulling way from the rest of the field; helped in no small part by a huge battle for second between Tim Mullen, Emmanuel Collard, Matias Russo and Jiri Janak. The Irishman turned out to have the least luck of the quartet; “Collard took a lunge at me at the last corner,” said Mullen. “Then, while we were battling, the two cars behind us got through and I ended up slipping to fifth when we went four abreast into turn one.”

Wendlinger pitted from the lead at the end of lap 22 and Ryan Sharp took over. But the Scotsman did not get back the lead until Maassen pitted the #3 SRT Corvette on lap 28.

The redoubtable Christophe Bouchut was now in the Belgian car and he was about to put in a masterful stint.

At the one hour mark (30 laps), the leading positions were 33, 5, 6, 3, 36, 1, 2, 37, 79 and 50.

Fabrizio Gollin took second from Deletraz on lap 32 and began to pull away from his Phoenix team mate; at the same time closing the gap to the leader. Bouchut, meanwhile, was getting closer to third place, but suddenly found himself in the lead when the first three pitted on laps 41 and 42. It soon became clear that the Frenchman would not be following suit any time soon.

Things had not gone so well for ProSpeed #61, however, as Richard Westbrook was forced to retire from a strong second on lap 35; “We’ve blown the engine,” said the English driver, stoically. “Manu picked up debris at the first corner and that damaged the radiator. We’ve been losing water ever since and the temperature has been rising.

“The car was fantastic and we were definitely in with a sniff of victory; but there’s no point getting too depressed about it.”

Out at the front, Bouchut was building up a huge lead – 30 seconds with 27 minutes remaining and 36 seconds as the race entered its final quarter hour. But he kept passing the pit entrance. It transpired that Maassen had already completed his mandatory minimum driving time and so would not have to get in at a certain point; and Bouchut was clearly in his swing.

Wendlinger finally responded and pegged the gap at that 36 seconds; but would it be enough?

With less than four minutes to go, the Frenchman finally ended his classic stint and pitted to hand over to Maassen; who promptly stalled and lost a couple of seconds getting away. It made no difference to the lead, as Wendlinger was already through into first.

The SRT car was now in second, however, but he had both Phoenix Corvettes breathing down his neck. Alas for the Belgian, Mike Hezemans had built up enough momentum over the previous few laps to land an overtaking move on the last lap and Maassen came home in third – the filling in a Z06 baguette. “We didn’t know was going to happen. We were fighting for 2nd, 3rd and 4th position and it all depended on that last pitstop. We made a good start although I got hit into the dirt on the way out and lost a few places. But then Hezemans and Kumpen went out so I could retain 4th position. I think the first stint went well and I managed to keep a good pace, I was just not able to catch up to Karl. When Christophe went out, he just went as fast as he could, to make the biggest gap possible so that we wouldn’t lose our place when we pitted. The pit stop went really well and I was just in the car for two laps. I only just got in the car and the people I’m up against have already been there for 45 minutes, and we also had a problem with the rear-view mirror. In the end, I’m disappointed, I shouldn’t have let Mike pass, but it’s good to be back on the podium.”

 “The car was working very well,” said Bouchut, “and my thanks to SRT who did a good job. We’ll try to win at the next race in France, our home race and I’ll be pushing harder there.”

But for Karl Wendlinger and Jetalliance, this was a day when amends were well and truly made for Spa and Bucharest; “We showed this weekend once more that we are competitive, as we have all year long. Everything fell together for this race; we had good free practices to set up the car, then qualifying went well too. It’s been a very good race, the car has handled very well, it was very consistent and it allowed us to push at the end of the race. When I was nearing the end of the race and had Bouchut in front of me who had not pitted yet, I didn’t really understand my pit board and so wasn’t sure what was going on, so I just kept on pushing as much as possible and managed to pass the pits before they came out of them. I had things under control; I didn’t have to go over the limit, just drive as fast as possible. “

In GT2, the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 430 had a very comfortable win, from the #79 K plus K Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 RSR of Jiri Janak and Tim Bergmeister, and the #77 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 430 GT2 of Matteo Malucelli and Paolo Ruberti.

“My stint was quite good,” said Toni Vilander. “Gimmi did a good job in the beginning and he gave me the car in the lead. At one point Westbrook was closing in on me and they told me on the radio that I could go a bit quicker if I wanted. We sacrificed yesterday in qualifying, but you get points after the race, so the strategy worked. I was quite alone for my stint, so it was a good, constant stint.”

“It was a very good race,” added Gianmaria Bruni. “In the beginning I managed to pass Dirk and Collard going in to turn one, but when I started breaking a CRS car went into the back of a GT1 car; I avoided that accident and just pushed really hard for my 15 laps and tried to get a good gap. My stint was very nice, and the car went well. We’ve been making small adjustments all weekend and that seems to have worked. I don’t mind getting the extra weight back at Nogaro; it’ll get rid of the understeer, which I hate. We’ll see. Every race is a different story.”

Brno was by no means the best race of the season, but it had its moments. The championship now moves on to France – Nogaro, on October 5th.

MH