FIA GT1, Portimão – Qualifying Race Report
The Nissans Strike Back

(Images to follow)

With the #37 All-Inkl.com Lamborghini missing qualifying, and with the #8 Young Driver Aston having its qualifying times disallowed (leading to an eighth-placed start), the removal of two main challengers from the sharp end of the grid meant that the Qualifying Race would begin with the four Nissans blocking out the front two rows - Dumbreck (#22 JRM), Zonta (#20 Sumo), Krumm (#23 JRM) and Brabham (#21 Sumo).

As Peter Dumbreck led the field around the final turn, all eyes looked to the lights and waited for them to change from red to green…..and waited…..and waited. Finally, with the field bunching alarmingly as it slowly approached the line, the starter deigned to flick the switch and the pack charged down to the first corner.

Dumbreck won this first race-within-a-race by keeping his lead at T1, but behind him Ricardo Zonta found himself facing the wrong way after a tap from Marc Basseng’s #38 Murcielago. The Brazilian got going again but had fallen to 13th.

As Zonta began his recovery, Alex Müller’s race was coming to an end; the #7 Aston Martin; the German driver being involved in a three-way shunt that saw his car momentarily on two wheels as it drove up the side of Peter Kox’s #5 Lambo. When the dust settled, the Aston was headed to retirement with rear suspension damage.

The top three – Dumbreck, Krumm and Brabham – quickly began to get away from the chasing pack, and in time the two JRM cars began to drop the Australian’s Sumo GT-R. Further back, Darren Turner was making up lost ground by taking seventh from Basseng on the second lap and closing onto the tail of Nick Catsburg in the #11 Exim Bank Corvette.

Both Marc VDS Ford GTs made early progress; Maxime Martin soon following Turner past Basseng in the #41, and Bas Leinders taking two early places to hold ninth place on Lap 3.

Furtehr back still, Vanina Ickx was taking the distinctive #9 Belgian Racing Ford up the inside of Michael Rossi’s DKR Corvette to take 14th.

Dominik Schwager’s start in the #37 Lambo had been quite remarkable – last to sixth in the first two laps, and soon on Turner’s tail in the fight for fourth. The Aston driver knew that he had to get by the red Corvette and did just that at the start of Lap 10 with an incisive move into T1. This left Catsburg in a three-way fight with Schwager and Martin.

Soon after, Catsburg left enough of a gap at the entrance of T13 for Schwager to dive through and take the place. Martin took advantage of the Corvette driver’s loss of momentum and also went through; nearly taking another place as the Lambo locked up momentarily. Schwager recovered quickly enough to close the door and hold on, now in fifth place.

At the head of the field, Dumbreck and Krumm were separated by no more than a second, with a further four seconds back to Brabham. In the pitlane, Richard Westbrook was already helmeted up and awaiting his turn in the #22 as the pit window approached.

Leinders would not get as far as the driver-change as his Ford expired at the end of the pit straight in a spectacular pirouette that followed a right-rear puncture.

Brabham was the first of the stoppers, handing the #21 over to Jamie Campbell-Walter. Turner followed him down the pitlane and Stefan Mücke took control of the #8. As JC-W tried to leave his pit-box, however, two pitting cars baulked his exit and caused him to stand on the brakes. He exited ahead of the Aston, but had lost several seconds as a result.

Michael Krumm stopped from second after 28 minutes, leaving Lucas Luhr with a lap in which to get bedded in before Richard Westbrook brought the leading Nissan back into the race after taking over from Dumbreck.

As the English driver left his pit, in-car footage showed him to be still attempting to tighten his belts, and this was enough of a distraction to allow Luhr to take the lead by a few lengths into T1. Once strapped-in, however, Westbrook slotted into place right behind the German and reversed the positions at T1 on the very next lap with a hugely assertive move.

With the pitstops all over, the order was now 23, 22, 21, 8, 41, 37, 38, 20, 11, 4, 6, 5, 3, 9, 10 and 47, with 19 laps having been completed.

Nicky Pastorelli was soon pushing Yann Clairay for fifth and, with 22 minutes to go, the positions changed hands as the #41 Ford overran T13; the #37 Lambo driver being only too grateful to accept the gift.

The remainder of the race was relatively static. At the head of the field, Westbrook seemed to be controlling his lead – at no time greater than a second – quite comfortably from Luhr, while the following cars all had significant gaps between them.

One man was making progress, though. Karl Wendlinger had taken over the delayed #5 Swiss Racing Lambo from Peter Kox in 12th place, but over the course of his stint managed to depose teammate Max Nilsson and the #4 Hexis Aston of Christian Hohenadel. The incident at the start of the race, however, meant that the Murcielago was too far back to progress further and the tall Austrian finished tenth.

Despite JRM boss James Rumsey’s denial of any suggestion of team-orders, the two JRM Nissan’s did not appear to be racing; merely lapping in close – albeit rapid – formation. However, as the race moved into its final lap, Luhr suddenly seemed to be attempting to disprove this impression as the #23 closed visibly on the leader. Westbrook was just that bit too far ahead for this to become a real threat in the time remaining and he hung on to take the win by 0.388s. JC-W followed in third, 11 seconds later.

“I just want to thank my team-mate and everyone at Nissan and JRM - it’s one hell of an achievement to have three cars on the podium," said Westbrook. "There is a lot of hard work that has gone into this, and while this track is good for us it’s so important we make the most of it.

“Well done to these boys and their crew (the No.23 JRM team), they did a good stop and beat us in the pit lane. It’s so close with all of us that a quick pit stop can change everything. felt like I had a better car than Lucas in the first few laps though, I could see him struggling particularly in the last corner so I thought ‘here’s my chance’, went for it and got the lead. Sure enough he came back at me later and had the legs on me, and it wasn’t easy in the last few laps. You can definitely overtake here, so the race tomorrow is wide open - we have some improvements to make and we have better tyres though, so we’re looking forward to it.”

“First of all, our guys did a great pit stop and as I came down the main straight I saw Richard coming out of the pit lane,” said Luhr. “On my out lap I already was struggling with front grip, and I was struggling a lot in the last corners. I saw Richard coming, he had a huge run on me out of the last corner and he dived down the inside – I could have closed it a little bit but at the end we are team-mates and it’s important we have a good result for Nissan. Also I didn’t have the weapons to fight at that time so I thought maybe I could come back later. I did, but it was a really good move by Richard into turn one and it was fair, so it was clear from my side not to do anything stupid. The big points come tomorrow however and we have some improvements to make to our car. Hopefully all three cars can be back tomorrow for the Championship Race – that would be really great for Nissan.”

“If we look back to Zolder we had two DNFs, so Sumo Power team were pretty down in the dumps,” said Campbell-Walter. “To bounce back and have three cars on the podium is absolutely fantastic, not only for Sumo Power but also for JRM and Nissan. All credit to them, the Sumo guys have had a hard three weeks since Zolder to repair the cars and we’ve had a few little problems here from knock-on effects, so to be third is fantastic – well done to everybody in the whole team really. We had a great pit stop actually, it’s something I think all four crews have improved on massively, but unfortunately because Brabs was so up the road compared to some of the other cars that came in we lost maybe two or three seconds when I had to stop for the Lamborghini coming in. We definitely have to make some little improvements to our car tomorrow, these guys were a little bit quicker, but we’ll nibble away at it and hopefully have a good result and be here tomorrow.”

Mücke’s was the first of the Aston Martins home in fourth, ahead of the #37 Lambo and the #41 Ford. Enrique Bernoldi finished the race in eighth place in the #20 Sumo Nissan.

Nissans would thus again block out the front of the Championship Race on Sunday. Could they produce a repeat result?

MH