FIA GT, Budapest – Race Report
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A highly entertaining two hours around the Hungaroring ended with a fine, but very short-lived victory for the KplusK Saleen of Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp – the #14 being excluded from the results after failing the post-race stall test. This left Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini holding the winners trophy, but outstanding drives from Enrique Bernoldi and Richard Westbrook were the highlights of this race.

The Brazilian made an excellent start to take the Sangari Corvette from third to first by the first corner. In fact, the whole order was shaken up on an eventful first lap; Alessandro Pier Guidi being the biggest loser, dropping from fourth to tenth.

Wendlinger retained his second place and followed the leader round, very closely followed by six other GT1s. The tight nature of the circuit meant that overtaking would be very difficult, with that first corner proving to be the almost the only place where such a move was possible, and it was this that led to the first casualty of the race after only a handful of laps.

Alex Müller, perhaps keen to make an early move, made a horribly over-optimistic dive down the inside of Turn 1 from third. He immediately realised his error and slammed on the brakes, but by then the damage was done. His momentum carried him past the Saleen and into the side of the leading Corvette. The Sangari car managed to continue without injury, but Wendlinger wasn’t so lucky; the Saleen being tagged badly by the #2 Maserati and knocked back down to eighth place.

But it was the Maserati that came off worse, and the MC12 crawled back to the pits, never to be seen again.  

The GT1 battle quickly closed up into a multi-car train once more and the order remained unchanged for a number of laps as the race settled down.

In GT2, it was a similar story, with the Brixia racing Porsche of Martin Ragginger leading four red Ferraris after his own storming start. Richard Westbrook was at this point in sixth place, after starting from the rear of the grid as a result of having his (pole position) qualifying time annulled for failing the stall test.

With a quarter of the race gone, Alvaro Barba Lopez attempted to take fourth from Tim Mullen in the #55 CRS Ferrari, but was pushed wide by the Ulsterman as the two cars exited the first corner. Westbrook saw a big gap open up in front of him and he almost took both cars. Mullen recovered in time to slam the door shut on the #60 ProSpeed Porsche, but the #51 AF Corse Ferrari now found itself back in sixth.

Ragginger stopped surprisingly early – after just 28 minutes – to hand over to Luigi Lucchini, and so the lead fell to the #77 BMS Scuderia Italia 430 of Paulo Ruberti.

Bernoldi was driving with impressive confidence and poise to keep Bertolini behind him, but further back, Wendlinger was making life difficult for himself as he tried to recover lost ground. Having taken seventh from Bert Longin’s SRT Corvette, the Austrian caught back up with the lead train before overshooting a corner and taking a trip through the kitty litter. He managed to rejoin, but all his hard work had been undone.

Mike Hezemans was the first of the GT1 runners to make a scheduled stop, and the Dutchman handed over his Corvette to Anthony Kumpen from fifth place.

Tim Mullen, meanwhile, was driving very well in the CRS Ferrari and soon found himself able to challenge Gimmi Bruni for second in GT2. He made his move on the approach to Turn 1 and found just enough space to carry off the manoeuvre.

Much to the Italian driver’s annoyance, Westbrook was also right there and followed through into third.

The two Ferraris pitted next time round, which allowed the Englishman to go after Ruberti for the class lead; the position changing hands at the three-quarter hour point.

By now the scheduled stops were in full flow. Bernoldi stopped from the lead after 41 minutes, while Wendlinger and Bertolini stopped several minutes later – Michael Bartels rejoining just ahead of Ryan Sharp, but losing position shortly afterwards. Richard Westbrook handed over to Manu Collard after 58 minutes, just before Pier Guidi stopped the #33 from the lead.

The top ten was now 14, 01, 33, 08, 18, 19, 04, 03, 50 and 112. However, the #01 Maserati was awarded a drive-through penalty fro speeding in the pitlane, which dropped Bartels back down the order.

The next 15 minutes saw few overtaking moves – Thomas Biagi’s move in the LAA Corvette up to fifth being the most significant – but there were several interesting duels taking place; most notably those between Andrew Kirkaldy and Marco Holzer, and Collard v Matteo Malucelli.

It wasn’t long before the second round of stops began and there would be another period of confusion before the places were set for the final showdown. At one point, Matteo Bobbi led in the #33 MC12 from fellow 2003-champion and current Racing Box teammate, Biagi.

The majority of stops saw no fresh rubber being taken onboard, as teams sought to find a few seconds at the stop. When all was done, however, Pier Guidi led from Wendlinger and Bertolini in GT1, while Bruni led Ruberti and Westbrook in GT2.

Enrique Bernoldi had rejoined some way down after his less-experienced teammate, Roberto Streit, had lost ground during his stint. He found himself behind Hezemans and fighting for fifth place with half an hour remaining, but it would be almost ten minutes before he overcame the Corvette driver with a robust move at the chicane. He then chased down Xavier Maassen in the LAA Corvette and took fourth with less than five minutes remaining.

Karl Wendlinger brought down the gap to the leading Maserati quite rapidly and took the lead with ten minutes to go with almost effortless ease. He then pulled away from the #33 in similar fashion.

Things were more dramatic in GT2.

Westbrook  finally overcame the BMS Ferrari with 18 minutes still on the clock, but found himself with an eight-second deficit to the #50 AF Corse; and, with Gimmi Bruni at the wheel, it seemed highly unlikely that the Porsche would finish any higher.

Nevertheless, he nibbled away at the lead and at the race entered its final ten minutes, the gap was coming down visibly. He didn’t catch up with the Ferrari until just two minutes remained on the clock, however, and it just seemed too much to ask.

But Westbrook hadn’t come all this way for nothing and, as the two GT2 leaders started the final lap, the Porsche driver made an audacious dive down the inside at Turn 1. The white car wobbled as its driver fought to control it, but it was past the Ferrari and stayed there through the corner; carrying on to complete a famous victory.

“It was one of those races you just want to be part of and it was a pleasure driving every lap,” said a delighted Westbrook. “The team set up the car perfectly. We weren't so good when the tyres when the tyres were new, but when the tyres went off our car just had a good drop off compared to everyone else. I saw that in the first stint when I was following Gimmi.  Even though the gap was 8 seconds, I knew we had a chance because his car dropped off the pace as the tyres got older. This is a fantastic result after yesterday. I thought we deserved to be on top all weekend, the team have been on top form and we've been so hungry to close the gap to the nr50 car and we're all delighted.”

“The Porsche was so fast and it was very hard for us to fight with them since the beginning of the first stint,” said Bruni. “Our car with 100 kg in it is a bit difficult. We were fast straight away for the first 15 laps, but after I was behind Paolo; at 60 kg lighter than us he was faster on the straight and slow in the corners, so it was difficult to pass. We were struggling to pass people and we used up the tyres a lot. Then Richard came up and we couldn't do anything. He was so fast. They did a very good race and the teams did a good job. We were second, not last so we score points, and we have three races left. If it's still like this, it will be difficult for the championship, but you never know what can happen in racing.”

Bruni and Vilander now have just a two-points lead over Collard and Westbrook.

Wendlinger completed his race in altogether less hurried style, and stroked the Saleen across the line to take the chequered flag.

“The race was very hectic,” said the Austrian. “In the first stint, Alex [Müller] missed the braking a bit in the first corner after a few laps, then we had contact and I dropped back, but I managed to catch up again quite quickly, passing a few cars. I tried to pass the Luc Alphand Corvette; I had to try and avoid him and ended up going on the dirty line. I dropped back again, caught up again, tried to pass Bert Longin and I touched him, for which I am sorry. Then Ryan did a great middle stint. In my second stint, two laps after I'd left the pits, the fuel alarm went off, I lost power steering, I had a misfire and no radio, no power shift. I said, okay, that's it. But suddenly after three laps, everything was working again. I don't know why or how, but I'm happy that I finished first. It was good luck to win this race and get these points.”

Half a minute later, the #1 Maserati of Bertolini appeared into view and took second; the #33 of Pier Guidi having backed off so much to assist its sister-car’s title chances that it almost ceded third to the impressive Bernoldi.

“For us this is like a victory, if you consider the success ballast which is really quite hard to deal with,” said Bertolini. “The key I think is that yesterday we did quite a lot of work on the car, did a lot of tests and we are really happy with this because the car was really consistent, it was not really fast because of the difference, especially in terms of power with the Corvette, is not showing. The start was really exciting because we were 8 cars in about 2-3 seconds. It was a really tough race, but after the crash with Alex and Karl, I was second behind Bernoldi; I was strong in the corner, but I had no chance in the straight. Anyway, we've scored really important points and I want to thank the whole team because they did really hard work yesterday and this morning and during the race.”

But having tasted the champagne, the winners were forced to hand back the trophies after the scrutineering issue came to light. Bartels and Bertolini thus inherited the win and moved four points clear of Anthony Kumpen and Mike Hezemans in the title chase. 

With three races remaining, both titles are very much up for grabs. As the series moves on to the Algarve, any slip up from the teams still in the title-hunt will have costly implications.

MH