FIA GT Championship, Adria - Warm-Up Report

Hot

A leisurely day, which means ample opportunity to sample different flavors of gelato - always a highlight of any trip to Italy. It’s also a good way to cool off. It’s hot (38 degrees at noon!) but not too humid for race day. Festivities begin with the first of two EGTS races (Endurance GT Serie). This is run by Italy’s somewhat secondary sanctioning body, Gruppo Peroni.

All of eight cars took the start. The Porsche 997 of the Coggiola family leads by a lap. This is the same car that appeared in the Monza round of the FIA GT. The competition is a bit easier here for Victor Coggiola. Yes, he’s the same man who was the last to run a Porsche 935 during the Group C era. The pseudonymous “Spidey” is next with a similar Porsche. His co-driver is Gianluca De Lorenzi, who has sporadically appeared in international events. The same is true for entrants / drivers of the third and fourth place cars, the Ferrari 360 GTC of Michel Orts and the F430 of Edy Gay. The rest of the field consists of an elderly 550 (Davide Amaduzzi [this is the car that Arturo Merzario will drive in the second EGTS race]), 430 Challenge type Ferraris for Renato Benusiglio Marco Bassetto, and a Corvette Z06 driven by ex-F2 / F3000 man Roberto Del Castello.

As this is a swampy lowland area, it is prone to insects and we’ve just had an invasion of them. Oops, no that’s incorrect. It’s just the Fiat 500 Cup race, which has the largest field of the day. One can be forgiven that with so many of them buzzing this way and that in the infield, I thought they were something else.

Yesterday during the ‘pre-qualifying’, Miguel Ramos (No. 2 Vitaphone Maserati) collided with Andrew Kirkaldy (No. 56 CR Scuderia Ferrari). There was little damage but Ramos’ action was deemed avoidable and his team was docked five spaces on the grid. Moreover, the team managers and the drivers agreed to understand and speak English.

I did not make up that last sentence. It was included in Steward Decision Nr. 2 [sic]. I’m not sure who they are referring to; the Germans at Vitaphone, Ramos’s Lisbon accented Continental English, or Kirkaldy’s Scottish brogue? Perhaps all will have to undertake a remedial class in SRO-ese taught by Prof. Ratel.

As mentioned, the tight and narrow nature of the circuit encouraged many cars to cross over the white lines during the practice sessions. Several also did so during qualifying—a more egregious offense. In each of these cases the penalty was to have their fastest laps canceled. The cars involved are;

3, Selleslagh Corvette

4, Peka Racing Saleen

5, Phoenix Corvette

10, Gigawave Aston Martin

15, JMB Maserati

36, Jetalliance Aston Martin

37, ACA Argentina Ferrari 550

57, GT2, Kessel Ferrari

59, GT2, Trackspeed Porsche

62, GT2, Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari

Needless to say, this completely scrambles the grid—or does it. The deck has been shuffled so much that it ends up appearing much the same as before.

amended position	car	new time	old position
1	5	1:11.731	1
2	1	1:11.802	2
3	33	1:11.815	3
4	2	1:11.916	4
5	6	1:12.058	6
6	3	1:12.076	5
7	10	1:12.369	7
8	37	1:12.370	8
9	7	1:12.408	9
10	15	1:12.838	11
11	36	1:12.864	10
12	4	1:13.436	12
13	50	1:15.094	13
14	61	1:15.108	14
15	12	1:15.110	15
16	51	1:15.394	16
17	95	1:15.522	17
18	77	1:15.631	18
19	78	1:15.759	19
20	56	1:15.826	20
21	55	1:15.869	22
22	62	1:15.950	23
23	57	1:16.040	21
24	60	1:16.041