FIA GT3, Brno – Preview
Two Great Races In Prospect

30 cars make their way to the Czech Republic for rounds four and five of the 2010 championship, and this time Marc VDS have remembered to take the homologation paperwork with them, meaning that the new-spec Mustang will be making its race debut.

As well as the Mustang, Chad Racing will field its second Ferrari 430 Scuderia for Charlie Hollings and Damien Charveriat, while Charveriat’s Silverstone vehicle – the #10 Team S-Berg Racing BMW Alpina – fails to make the trip. Most changes, however, are in the driver lineups.

Trackspeed – winners of round one with the #20 Porsche 911 GT3 R – see three new drivers for the Brno races. Phil Keen joins Siso Cunill in the #20 in place of Tim Bergmeister, while Kevin Veltman and Yucel Ozbek form a new partnership in the #21. Keen has raced for Trackspeed on several occasions since 2006 in FIA GT3 and also British GT and also has three FIA victories to his name from his time in a Tech 9 Porsche in 2006. Veltman is more usually found in a GT4 BMW in the European Cup, while Ozbek races in German Carrera Cup.

Argo Racing also sees changes, with Charlie Geipel joining his elder brother Philip in the team (honestly, you wait ages for one Geipel to turn up and then….). Ellen Lohr has withdrawn from the squad, leaving P Geipel to team up with Albert von Thurn und Taxis in the #24 LP560-4, while C Geipel joins Giorgio Sanna in the #25. Unluckily for the #25 drivers, they get stuck with the 10 kg ballast awarded to the car after Silverstone, despite neither of them having been in it before.

Johannes Seidlitz is replaced in the #3 Team Rosberg Audi R8 by Austrian Bernd Herndlhofer, and American driver Robert Kauffman steps in for Vimal Mehta in the #30 Black Falcon R8.

The Audis in particular will be hoping that the BoP adjustment for this race will bring them closer to the front after the eight cars were largely anonymous during the first two races and only featured briefly at the sharp end. Stéphane Lemeret was the most impressive of the Audi drivers at Silverstone and it will be interesting to see if that remains the case this weekend; certainly United Autosports will be looking to close the gap and establish itself as top Audi team before too long.

But what of the Brno circuit itself? "This technical track is good for the Ferrari," said Stéphane Daoudi in 2007. "The track is often dirty, as there is a lot of sand around the corners, and especially in the technical part so that could be slippery and dangerous. To be fast here you have to know it very well, and also it is going to be fun as it is possible to overtake there."

One car that always goes well here is the Corvette and the Z06R looked very strong at Silverstone and came very close to taking both wins. The #101 Calloway car took the Sunday race and, despite a BoP penalty and 20 kg of success ballast, Daniel Keilwitz and Christian Hohenadel were looking fast already in first practice at Brno.

Arnaud Peyroles knows the circuit well and has tasted victory with Corvette here before (in 2007) and he will be undoubtedly be viewing this as his opportunity to make up for a calamitous start to his and Arnaud Vincent’s season when the #17 Graff Racing Z06 managed not a single racing lap in two attempts in the UK.

The Porsche GT3 R will also have to carry more weight, but will that be enough to hold back this impressive new car? All three teams – Trackspeed, Mühlner and Prospeed – were in contention at Silverstone and Brno should see a similar scenario.

The Ford GT and the Aston Martin DBRS9 have also tasted success at Brno in previous visits and both should feature again – the Fred Makowiecki-pedalled Hexis DBRS9 in particular should go well; the Frenchman having the speed, experience and, most importantly, the nous required to win.

The three BMWs are likely to remain mid-pack for this race, with more development needed on both the B6 and the Z4 – although they were not too far away at times at Silverstone – but it may well be the Italian cars that get amongst the leaders in Brno.

Philip Geipel was a revelation in the opening two races and, now that he is partnered with Lamborghini specialist, Albert von TuT, has a much better chance of being able to capitalise on his own and the car’s strengths. His brother Charlie is an unknown quantity in FIA GT3, but appears to have inherited the family racing genes also, as recent results in the ADAC GT Masters show.

Diego Alessi and Giacomo Petrobelli found great pace in the Chad Ferrari at the first two races and should be able to reproduce that form in the next two. Assuming technical issues stay away for the weekend (and that Alessi remembers to pit on time), a podium finish is well within reach.

Qualifying for the two races takes place at 9:00 Saturday morning (local), with the first race starting at 14:15. TV coverage of the races is excellent with both Motors TV and Bloomberg showing the Saturday race live, as well as live streaming on gt3europe.com.

MH