FIA GT Championship – Oschersleben – Race Report
Getting Odder

So who’s more fed up? Anthony Kumpen and Bert Longin for taking a serene win, leading every lap – then finding they lost it for having a fuel tank size that was too large – or the journalists who wrote their stories and then found that is was all gobbledygook, because not only the winners were thrown out, but also the third place Lamborghini.

So Bartels and Biagi took the win – after pitting right at the start. Deliberately. As did others. All because of the stupid two pit stop rule. When Hezemans and Deletraz thought it up at Bucharest it was rather amusing. Now it’s just bloody silly. Let’s have a race in which several cars don’t even compete with the rest while the track is at its busiest – yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s split it up so that the poor spectator is clueless.

Thank heavens it’s Spa next: no daft pit stops, no ballast, a 24 hour race – may the best men win. They did in GT2, Bruni and Ortelli winning again, so five in a row for AF Corse, but Janis and Mullen proved that an early stop wasn’t such a bad idea, because they finished third, right on the tail of the Malucelli / Collard Porsche.

Although it hurts to say it, teams that opted out of the start in favour of a pit stop did miss the kerfuffle at Turn 1.

JetAlliance became the big losers, with Wendlinger, squeezed by hard man Mucke, ending up being tapped by team-mate in #36 Lechner, who then ‘lost’ his throttle mechanism on lap 1. Wendlinger resumed well down, then discovered that the alternator belt had been dislodged, had that fixed, then #33 retired with a broken hub as Ryan Sharp ended his stint.

So Lechner was in the pits at the end of lap 1, while Hezemans, Bartels, Mullen and Kirkaldy all pitted at lap 0 and ended up a minute off the overall lead after one tour.

Thank heavens (second one) for the simple world of Sean Edwards: he led GT2 as they crossed the line for the first time, and he didn’t look as though he wanted to give it up. Muller, Zani, Bruni and Collard looked as though they wanted him to give it up immediately. Good racing (thank heavens for).

Out front, although he was worried about fast starting Wendlingers and Muckes, Anthony Kumpen made a blinder – and until the scrutineering bay loomed, that was about all anyone saw of the #4 Corvette. Kumpen and Longin had it dialled in beautifully, drove beautifully, and while everyone else managed to adopt odd tactics or just generally bugger about at the start, Kumpen drove away.

The gap was less than two seconds, to Mucke, on lap 7, but by 20 minutes into the race, it was almost five. A puncture for the only car to keep the Corvette in sight saw the #7 Murcielago slip to 11 seconds back on lap 22, then pit for Bouchut to take over. Montanari in #2 Vitaphone Maserati was now second, but half a minute behind. This MC12 had a long pit delay later.

Kumpen was gone, Longin took over and no one caught sight of him (on the same lap at least), and with 22 minutes to go, and everyone else having made two stops, Longin had well over a lap in hand. When Kumpen then resumed at the wheel, he still led by a whopping 78 seconds. And then the fuel tank was found to be too large.

“I would like to thank Bert because he slightly changed the set-up this morning and that was the right thing to do,” said Anthony Kumpen. “Thanks to his decision, we were the only team capable of maintaining the pace throughout the race.”

Unfortunately, the two Belgians didn’t maintain their championship lead for long. Thomas Biagi is suddenly the clear leader on 31, with new runners-up Bertolini and Piccini on 23 – and then a big bunch of no scorers (today) on 20 or 18 (Ramos and Montanari, who did score a single point, Kumpen / Longin, Sharp / Wendlinger, Bouchut / Mucke and Hezemans / Deletraz. This lot are joined by Jamie Davies and Fabio Babini, who finally ended up third today, having had a pretty good run.

With all the oddities at the start, Jamie Davies was fourth after the first lap, holding off the two Playteam MC12s. The Aston Martin was quicker down the short straights, the Maseratis better through the corners, and the Englishman eventually had to give way to both, although he resisted for a full half hour, and it needed a ‘love tap’ from Bertolini to help nudge him out of the way.

Biagi in #1 Maserati was a lap down at this stage, but this car had got one stop out of the way remember. So had Deletraz in #5 Corvette, but he limped in with broken rear suspension.

Other than the Davies / Bertolini / Pier Guidi sort out, the best racing was in GT2, where Edwards and company were scrapping furiously. The young Brit held onto P1 for 18 laps, by which time Muller in #50 was in trouble with leaky power steering, while Bruni and Zani (fastest lap for the Ebimotors man) had come together (water leak for the 997, new rad. needed).

Bruni continued troublefree, and with Ortelli fault free in the quick, 37 minute middle stint, that was win no. 2 for #51. Collard and Malucelli were second for BMS and Porsche, and Mullen finished right on Collard’s tail. But it might have been a safe second for the Mullen / Janis car.

Tim Mullen: “We’ve had a pretty disastrous year so far, so I think we’ve made a big step forward this weekend. We worked hard with Pirelli; we stayed on at Monza for two days and seemed to find a tyre that was certainly much better for our car and that lasted much better in the races. I’d like to thank them for working so hard, and the team as well. It was really great fun at the end with Emmanuel, we battled hard. The team’s decision to come in right at the start was because the first corner is very tight, making the first lap very slow; we made the decision to pit on the green flag lap, for our mandatory first pit-stop. I think it worked very well. Jarek did a great job and it has been great driving with him again. Unfortunately when he came in to pit and handed it over to me, we dropped a wheel nut and we lost 18 seconds because of it. But I’m still so happy that we’ve made it this far this weekend.”

It was a good race for second in GT1 (although irrelevant in the end) between the #1 Maserati and the #7 Lamborghini: Bochut passed Biagi in the middle period of the race (the middle for the Lamborghini anyway, Biagi was completing his single stint (1 hr. 15 mins.), effectively from the start), but as Longin pitted with that huge lead towards the end, Bartels was closing in on Mucke. This looked as though it could be fairly hairy, but Stefan played it hard but fair, allowing Michael to make a clean pass. And in the end, Bartels was adjudged to be the winner, with partner Biagi taking a big lead in the drivers’ title. The third placed Lamborghini was removed from the results thanks to a gearbox / ratios / homologation issue. The sister car wasn’t affected, the Menten / Kox car running without its bonnet to seventh (then fifth, behind #1, #11, #23 and #12).

“We lost the race on the circuit, but rules are rules,” said Bartels. “From terms of pure performance we couldn’t win today. It is not a sweet victory. But we have now won three times in a row here, and increased Tomas’ lead to eight points. This result has turned the points upside down. We also now have a Maserati one-two in the Championship, with Bertolini and Piccini behind Biagi. It might turn into one of the milestones on our defence of our titles. But we have to be fair – we were not competitive enough to beat the Corvette on the track, and I feel slightly sorry for them, as they did a good job today.”

Spa next then, and what could turn out to be one of the great 24 hour races. Perhaps by Adria in September the teams will resolve the two stop rule by all pitting at the start of the race? “And here they come round the last turn, the drivers about to floor the throttles… Oh, they’re all pitting.” Ah, but they wouldn’t all pit, because some clever so and sos would go racing – on a relatively clear track. Please, World Council, dump the two stop rule.