FIA GT Championship, Adria – Qualifying Report
Power Trumps Handling

So much for the chance of a cooler weekend. It is now well and truly hot with track temperature at about 38.

There was a 4-hour break for the FIA GT cars between the last practice and qualifying. However, the track was far from idle. There are five support races on tap; VW Fun Cup, Fiat 500 Cup, Kia Rio Sport Cup are the slow ones, requiring a Coffee Cup to watch awake (times in the 1:50s vs FIA GT 1:15s), while there are two races for larger cars. One is the Italian Touring Cars Competition (a small field of BMW 320s and Alfa Romeo 147s) and the other is the Endurance GT Series. This consists of a mere eight cars, a mix of Porsches, Ferraris, and a Corvette. Among the drivers is the ageless Arturo Merzario.

As reported earlier, the No. 13 Rbimmo B-Racing Where Do They Come Up With These Team Names Saleen will miss the session. It was an upright failure, not a wheel bearing problem. Jos Menten will likely start the race tomorrow from pit lane. Thus far only Andrea Piccini has driven. That assumes they can wrest some Saleen parts from Franz Konrad. Another correction, it was the No. 62 Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari that caused the red flag this morning. Trackspeed runs one of those German thingies.

Here are the GT2 drivers for qualifying
50, AF Corse Ferrari, Gianmaria Bruni
51, AF Corse, Thomas Biagi
55, CR Ferrari, Tim Mullen
56, CR Ferrari, Andrew Kirkaldy
57, Kessel Ferrari, Fabrizio Del Monte
59, Trackspeed Porsche, Richard Williams
60, Porsche, Markus Palttala
61, Porsche, Emmanuel Collard
62, Scuderia Ecosse, Fabio Babini
77, BMS Ferrari, Matteo Mallucelli
78, BMS Ferrari, Davide Rigon
95, Advanced Ferrari, Matias Russo
101, G2 class Gillet Vertigo, Bas Leinders

Biagi posted the quickest opening flyer of this group at 1:16.350, but is almost immediately eclipsed by Babini’s 1:16.282, then Mallucelli’s 1:16.195 and then Collard’s 1:15.521. Biagi answers with a 1:15.600 next time around, good for third.

This is the order for the next few minutes, although the times continued to tumble, Collard to 1:15.108. The order changes when Bruni tops them all with a 1:15.094 at the halfway mark of the 15-minuted GT2 period.

Going into the final 3 minutes the Bruni-Collard-Biagi-Russo order seems set. The latter has been another Argentinean who has made an impression this weekend.

The GT1 qualifying drivers are:
1, Vitaphone Maserati, Andrea Bertolini
2, Vitaphone Maserati, Alexandre Negrao
3, SRT Corvette, Christophe Bouchut
4, Peka Racing Saleen, Anthony Kumpen
5, Phoenix Corvette, Marcel Fässler
6, Phoenix Corvette, Fabrizio Gollin
7, Larbre Saleen, Gregory Franchi
10, Gigawave Aston Martin, Philipp Peter
12, AT Racing Corvette, Wolfgang Kaufmann
15, JMB Maserati, Alain Ferte
33, Jetalliance Aston Martin, Karl Wendlinger
36, Jetalliance Aston Martin, Alex Müller
37, ACA Argentina, Jose Maria Lopez, Ferrari 550

The Piranha takes the first bite of the track during the GT1 period at 1:17.996. Negrao is the first with a truly competitive time of 1:12.728, followed by Müller’s 1:13.377 and Peter at 1:13.697. Then Wendlinger slots into second with a 1:12.750 and all are pushed down as Bertolini phones in with a 1:12.583 on his first flyer. After a bout with traffic, Bertolini improves to 1:12.147 and Peter can only answer with a 1:12.171 and Bouchut at 1:12.176. Now it’s the Brazilian Negrao’s turn to impress 1:11.916.

Aston Martin fans can rejoice as Wendlinger edged all with 1:11.815. But it did not last long thanks to Fässler setting a 1:11.602 on his first flyer (or is it .502? - screens are hard to read). There are attempts at a few more quick ones in the dying moments, but the order at the front of the grid will be Phoenix-Vitaphone-Jetalliance. The only one to improve at the end was Gollin, having moved up to sixth.

So the qualifying story might be that we have the surprise of a Corvette atop a Maserati, at a circuit that was expected to put a premium on handling over power.

Janos Wimpffen