Italian GT, Monza – Friday Report
A Strange Day A cold morning, followed by a good pleasant 15°C afternoon session, saw the free practice day of the last round of the Italian GT turn into a “everyone favourite” for the two races on Sunday. The first session was red flagged twice, cutting the 45 minutes into pretty much 30 minutes, but the Ferraris are on top both in GT2 and GT3. But the surprise of the day is the Kessel Racing 430 GT3 of Caccia-Bontempelli clocking the best times (very nearly the same time in the afternoon too). Second overall in the first practice are the GT2 430 points leaders Montermini-Moncini (despite very few laps turned in both sessions). Third in the first practice is the Autorlando Porsche of Lietz-Roda, followed by his GT3 title rivals Albuquerque-Bonanomi. The other GT2 title contenders were a little bit behind in session one, with sixth overall Cioci-Perazzini, and a much worse ninth for Palma-Mugelli. The GT Cup was dominated (as predicted) by the 4wd too-much-power Gallardo of Sanna-Stancheris, by almost two seconds in front of the 430 of Bocellari-Goldstein in session one, with the “almost Champions” Mancini-Mapelli well down the order. The second session started in good sun and turned into an almost-dusk ending, but surprised with very good times; and once again the Kessel 430 GT3 of Caccia-Bontempelli clocked the best time, followed by a blink of an eye by the title contender one of Gattuso-Lavio. Third is the Audi R8 of Capello-Giraudi. This was a very “up-side down” standing with the GT2 cars struggling especially in the huge braking spots at the first chicane - we counted no less than 20 short-cutting manoeuvres and about the same lock-up of brakes. Anyway, the title contenders in GT3, apart from Gattuso-Lavio, are eighth and ninth overall - Albuquerque-Bonanomi and Roda-Lietz - with Roda doing most of the job in this session. The GT2 is led again by Moncini-Montermini by almost a second and several spots from Cioci-Perazzini, followed by Palma-Mugelli. The GT Cup is again a “Bull Riding zone” with Sanna-Stancheris still on top, but a surprising second in class is the “wild card” Autorlando 997 of Ruberti-Broggian (Ruberti did the time). Still a long way down are Mancini-Mapelli. We saw very strange times set by all the drivers - it seems the GT3 car can contest for the overall win, but maybe in the rain everything will change. The GT3 Porsches - both the Autorlando and the GDL - are very well balanced, can jump hard on the kerb (now very high at the first two chicanes) and have a very good jump exiting the chicane. The GT2 cars have lots of braking issues, and that’s not a good thing for Sunday. The most impressive thing is the power of the Gallardo 4wd Cup class; we saw how late they can brake and for some laps even for a GT2 Ferrari it was hard to pass the Lambo in the “drag race” out of the first and second chicanes. As we said, 30+ cars when the three titles are still up for grabs, in the rain…boy oh boy, this could be a nasty one… Richard Lietz; “The car is very good, very well balanced, and after the bad weekend from the GT Open race we find the right way. Hope to have no more BOP changing. As for the races on Sunday, I hope it won’t rain.” But the weather forecast is pretty much clear; it will rain, maybe light for race one in the morning, but cats and dogs will go down for race two. FP1 result - here FP2 result - here Gabriele Tosi | 
