FIA GT1, Interlagos - Qualifying Report
Bernoldi And Negrao Put Maserati On Pole

Enrique Bernoldi took his first pole position of the season with new co-driver, and fellow Brazilian, Xandi Negrao.  The nr2 Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC12 was just 0.027 seconds faster than the nr38 All Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport Lamborghini Murcielago MC12 of Dominik Schwager and Nicky Pastorelli.  Third quickest was the nr7 Young Driver AMR Aston Martin DB9 of Tomas Enge and Darren Turner.

Championship leader Andrea Bertolini made an early exit, only managing to set the 19th fastest time in the first session; the Italian making a mistake on a quick lap and struggling with 40kg of success ballast on the nr1 Maserati MC12.  The top car in the first session was the nr34 Triple H Team Hegersport Maserati MC12 of Daniel Serra, who finished just ahead of fellow Brazilian Sergio Jimenez in the nr11 Mad-Croc Racing Corvette.

In Q2 Nicky Pastorelli was at the top of the times at the end of the 15-minute session, the All-Inkl Lamborghini finishing ahead of Michael Krumm in the nr23 Sumo Power GT Nissan GT-R.                                  

With the nr1 Vitaphone Maserati out of contention, the other championship rivals all made it through to the final qualifying session.  Marc Hennerici went fourth fastest in the Phoenix Racing / Carsport Corvette, while Richard Westbrook was fifth fastest to keep co-driver Thomas Mutsch in contention for the World Championship title.

Two Stewards decisions from the last race in Spain would affect the grid for the Qualifying Race, with the nr5 Matech Competition Ford GT Matech of Richard Westbrook and Thomas Mutsch and the nr24 Reiter Lamborghini Murcielago of Peter Kox and Christopher Haase receiving three grid place penalties following incidents in Round 8.  This put the nr 5 Ford in eighth place and the nr24 Lamborghini in 21st.

Enrique Bernoldi; “This is brilliant. Pole position for us has been a long time coming and for it to happen here just makes it better. I have all friends and family here supporting me and the team and all the fans make me feel proud. We have an all Brazilian line-up in the No.2 Maserati which is great and the team are feeling positive. I'm really looking forward to the Qualifying Race."

Xandi Negrao; “The car has improved a lot since 2008 when I last drove it. Because Interlagos is a very tricky track I think we Brazilians had a big advantage against the others. Let’s see what happens in the Qualifying Race, I think it will be very tough for us. We have to take care of the tyres and let’s see how it goes. The start will be very exciting. I will be very patient in the beginning because we need to finish in front for the Championship Race tomorrow which is the important one. We have a car that we can push for the whole race so I’m quite confident.”

Andrea Bertolini; “We have a lot of ballast – 40 kilos so it makes it tough. I also made a mistake on a quick lap in the mid-section. I had to do the max and when you are on the limit there is always the chance that you will make a mistake. We just have to check the date and see if we can find something for the race. It’s very close and we have new tyres so have to find some improvement for sure. We really couldn’t get the new tyres to work well enough. It was too long into the run before they starting to work. We just couldn’t find that sweet spot soon enough and that cost us. But it’s not a horrible position we are in, we are about mid-pack so we are OK. If we can be consistent in the race the others should come back to us which is how it has been a couple of times this season. We are still hopeful of a good points haul this weekend.”