FIA GT1 - Paul Ricard - Championship Race

The #1 Vitaphone Maserati MC12 crew of Andrea Bertolini and Michael Bartels completed a pair of Paul Ricard wins over the weekend with a dominant win in yesterday's Championship adding to the points haul gained in Saturday's one hour qualifying race.

It looked at the start of the race though that things could have been very different with Peter Kox grabbing the lead in the #24 Reiter Lamborghini and Warren Hughes harrying the Maserati in third after a storming move past two other cars.

Kox and Hughes though were both penalised with stop-go penalties - The Lambo man for a jumped start and Hughes for not respecting the track limits.

And Bertolini's charge was aided even further when his team-mate, Enrique Bernoldi, running in a strong second place in the #2 Vitaphone Maserati was assaulted by Andrea Piccini's #13 Phoenix carsport Corvette on lap 10 - The Maserati was out almost on the spot and the Corvette getting the third stop-go penalty of the race for avoidable contact after Piccini had handed over the C6.R to Marc Hennerici.

That all left Michael Bartels in a strong position at the head of the race after the compulsory pit stops, He'd take a comfortable win ahead of the #23 Sumo Power Nissan, Peter Dumbreck building on a strong run from team-mate Michael Krumm that brought the Nissan up from ninth to fourth before Dumbreck bettered Mutsch in the #5 Matech Ford to bring the Nissan GT-R home less than ten seconds behind the winning MC12.

Altfrid Heger and Alex Margaritis took the final podium place in the #33 Triple H Maserati and, after a torrid Saturday Bas Leinders and Maxime Martin claimed an excellent fourth place in the #40 Marc VDS Ford GT.

Warren Hughes and Jamie Campbell Walter meanwhile mounted the comeback drive of the race - Down to 22nd after the early stop-go penalty the #22 Sumo Power pair stormed back through the field to get into the points, claiming ninth place overall after Campbell-Walter overtook both a Reiter Lamborghini and a Hexis Aston Martin in one move.

The pass came after JCW went three abreast in a drag race on the main straight.  Not content with that he went on to drag by the second Hexis Aston on the final lap to claim eighth place and four Championship points.

“I braked a couple of metres later than normal and went for it. It was great to make the move stick and pass both cars in one go for ninth place. I then got onto the radio to find out how far ahead the next car was."

“I was advised that it was a sizeable gap and that the race only had a few minutes left to run. I’m not one for giving up so I decided to go for it and took the eighth-placed Aston Martin with three corners to go. I think we could’ve been on for fifth place today but the drive-through finished it for us. I want to say huge congratulations to the team as both of the pit stops were fantastic today. Keep up the good work.”

Michael Bartels, Vitapahone Maserati #1

"The conditions out there were quite difficult, I dont think that I've raced in these conditions in all my racing life. Well maybe a few times - it was really hot in Bucharest in 2008."

"We had a good pit stop, I was concentrating on doing a quick out lap as I knew the Corvette was close behind. I had to push immediately to have a second or two still in front."

"At the end of my stint I was really taking care of the tyres. We knew that especially with the outside temperature the tyres were really working at the limit but I think today I must say thank you to Michelin tyres; they manage to work in this environment on these type of performance cars. Its very impressive. It was a great day, a great victory."

Andrea Bertolini, Vitaphone Maserati #1

"The (Reiter Lamborghini) start was like me in Brno. I remained on my quarter speed like the referee asked me and we did well. We lost one position against the Nissan GT-R but fortunately after two laps I got it back. When I overtook the Nissan GT-R the race was different, I was free and I could do my own lap times."

"I saw the car (Vitaphone Maserati) #2 crash with (Andrea Piccini in my mirror. I don't know what happened but I had Piccini with me and he tried to overtake on the exterior of the corner number 15, and its impossible. Anyway that's not my problem."

"We scored 25 points and that's good. The team was perfect again. Also we did the pit stop really quick again, in 26 seconds, this is a key because we are really close and we have a really good fight with all the cars."

"When you are in the first two or three rows you know that you are racing against top professional drivers, when you start at the back some people's helmets are either too tight or its too warm inside of the car."

Michael Krumm, Sumo Power Nissan GT-R #23

"It was a dramatic day for us yesterday, we qualified well but then we had a huge disappointment in the Qualifying Race. We used all the tyres and due to a collision we lost the front splitter, which affected down force badly. Today I realised how much that affected us."

"The Nissan performed really well in the race, it was balanced, there was enough grip but as the race started there were cars everywhere, sometimes three abreast so I was just focusing on keeping the car in the race for a little while."

"Last night I don't think any of the team really slept, we were all wondering what was going on with the car but today we are all really happy, fantastic result."

Peter Dumbreck, Sumo Power Nissan GT-R #23

"Today I felt like a racing driver again, yesterday I felt restricted, the handling of the car was not right and I knew I was holding people up. I'm surprised I didn't get rammed off the circuit. "Anyway, today was excellent, the car was performing very well. I'm very happy, I hope now that the team can get some rest."

Altfrid Heger, Triple H Maserati #33

"I am very happy. I finished racing about 10 years ago and it was always my hope and my wish to be on the podium, now its happened. We had a really good car, and a really good team."

"I was really relaxed at the beginning of the race despite all the action. Maybe this was the reason nothing bad happened to me. The pace of the car is good, maybe not as good as some others but good enough to survive on this circuit."

"Alex and I work really great together and I have found this out further this weekend. So thank you to the team thank you all."

Alexander Margaritis, Triple H Maserati #33

"The last few laps were quite hard for us, the rear tyres were really starting to go, we had quite a lot of oversteer. The No.40 Ford GT was closing in so I had to push but I had to bear in mind the tyres. Luckily nothing bad happened."

"The last lap seemed to be really long, it seemed to last longer than usual but as I crossed the line I felt really happy to be on the podium with my team mate. We work together well and we learn from each other's mistakes."

Maxime Martin, Marc VDS Ford GT #40

"Today was a good race for us, I had a good battle with Romain (Grosjean) near the end of the race and I got through on turn one which I thought was a good overtaking move."

"It is a shame we couldn't get on the podium but are very happy anyway. I think quite a lot of teams had problems with grip here because of the conditions, either oversteer or understeer, our car was OK, not perfect but OK."

Markus Palttala, Marc DVS Ford GT #41

"We made a lot of progress this week.  We struggled a lot on Friday and we made some changes for Saturday which were the wrong choices.  Sunday was the first time we felt quite competitive and we were quite consistent.  We focused on tyre-wear which everyone had issues with this weekend.  However, our sister Ford car (Matech) of Panis made contact with my team-mate Renaud which gave us suspension damage and the car was then very tricky to drive.  We finished 14th which I am not too happy about but we some progress."

Seiji Ara, Swiss Racing Nissan GT-R #4

"We couldn’t finish the race because we lost fourth gear so that affected our performance.  We were running in the top 10 which is a positive thing for us but we suffered bad luck.  Our lap times were not bad, either so I am confident we are making progress."

Pertti Kuismanen, Mad-Croc Corvette #12

"My race didn’t go very well and it was it was hard work out there today.  We had a very bad pit stop which didn’t help our position plus the car was damaged so it was then very bad to drive.  We now look ahead to the next race Spa-Francorshamps circuit and try to improve our showing there."

Dominik Schwager, All-Inkl Lamborghini #38

"We were actually expecting a little bit more today.  There was some confusion at the start - everyone was flat out at the final corner before the lights went out, we were all very tightly packed together so we lost a few positions there.  I was then stuck behind my team-mate, there was no way through so others were catching me from behind."

"In the end it is not a positive result for us.  We should have been in the points today.  For the next race we will need to try a different approach from Friday onwards to keep the tyres in better shape.  We have now found a better performance so I am looking forward to the next race at Spa."