International GT Open, Portimao – Race 2 Report
Lights To Flag Victory For Cameron & Griffin

Matt Griffin and Duncan Cameron drove their Ferrari 458 to a dominant and controlled win at the weekend's second International GT Open race in Portugal.

Having switched teams from MTECH to AF Corse since the opening round at Paul Ricard, the duo made up for the disappointment of missing Saturday's first race in Portimao by leading from lights to flag on Sunday – holding off the challenge of race-one winners Nicky Pastorelli and Miguel Ramos aboard the V8 Racing Corvette in the process.

Griffin made a decisive move around the outside of polesitter Pastorelli through the first corner, and he was never threatened after that, building up a comfortable gap to hand over to Cameron. The man who really had to work hard in the first stint was Andrea Montermini – solo-driving the Villorba Corse Ferrari today due to co-driver Luca Filippi's F1 commentary duties. This meant he would start from the back of the 29-car grid and carry an additional ten-second pit penalty, on top of the 30-second handicap awarded for Paul Ricard wins.

Montermini wasted no time carving through the field, and was sitting eighth overall by Lap 5. Things went less smoothly for the other solo driver on the grid, V8 Racing's Diederik Sijthoff, who was hit by a hard-charging Isaac Tutumlu's Autorlando Porsche. Carlos Vieira was also taken out of contention in the incident, but Tutumlu kept going and was hassling Stefano Gattuso's Kessel Racing Ferrari for fourth overall by Lap 7. Gattuso proved a tough nut to crack, however, and the distraction was sufficient to allow Roman Mavlanov in the Russian Bears Ferrari to close up and pass Tutumlu for third in the GTS class by Lap 13.

Jan Seyffarth ran as GTS class leader and a comfortable third overall for much of the first stint, but a puncture on Lap 12 – just before he was due to hand over to co-driver Miguel Toril – put paid to the Mercedes pair's chances of repeating Saturday's class podium. This allowed Mavlanov's co-driver Pol Rosell to take the Russian Bears Ferrari to class victory, ahead of Matteo Beretta and Michael Lyons, who enjoyed a deserved strong result after their early elimination from Saturday's race.

Up front, Pastorelli came in relatively early to give the Corvette to Ramos, yet Griffin stayed out until the last possible moment to hand the AF Corse car to Cameron. The British GT regular inherited a 27-second lead, and although second-place Ramos was undoubtedly quicker in the second stint, the gap was just too much to make up in the time available. Cameron crossed the line seven and a half seconds ahead of the Corvette.

Gattuso had held second in the GTS class while he was at the wheel, but his co-driver Marco Zanuttini struggled in the second half of the race. He was passed by Tutumlu’s co-driver Deverikos for third on Lap 23, and then proceeded to lose eight places in the space of a few corners. The battle for fourth in GTS was the main source of action in the race's closing stages, as Luis Razia (Bhai Tech McLaren), Stefano Costantini (Ombra Racing) and Lorenzo Bontempelli (Kessel Racing) ran close together. Razia would hold on to fourth, but Costantini dropped two places as the laps counted down, eventually finishing behind Bontempelli and Razia's team-mate Giorgio Pantano.

Alexander Talkanitsa Jr was able to thread his way through this scrap in his SGT-class Ferrari to take sixth overall and fourth in class at the flag, six seconds ahead of class rival Archie Hamilton's Drivex Porsche.

Montermini had climbed to third place overall before the pit window, but tumbled down the order to 18th once his almost two-minute stop had been served. Undeterred, he put on another brilliant display of driving as he scythed back up through the field, eventually getting himself back on the overall podium with a pass on GTS winner Rosell's Ferrari on Lap 26.

The next International GT Open round takes place at the Nürburgring over the weekend of June 1-2.

Stephen Errity (@83ste)

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