FIA GT3, Algarve – Race Two Report
A Win And A Title For Callaway

The second GT3 race at Portimao was an entertaining affair, with incident aplenty throughout the 60 minutes; and at the end of it we had two new Champions.

23 cars took the start on a sunny Algarve morning – the #32 Black Falcon Audi being the only absentee – and the spectators didn’t have long to wait before seeing the first position changes; Maxime Martin arriving at the first corner in the #99 Marc VDS Ford GT ahead of the pole-sitting #5 Sainteloc Audi of Gregory Guilvert and taking the correct line to make sure he kept it.

Marco Holzer would try the same move on Guilvert for second one lap later, but the #61 Prospeed Porsche had gone in too deep and ran wide, allowing the Audi back into second.

The relatively slow speed of the leaders as they approached the lights at the start resulted in a frantic fight for position further back in the field, with the result that the places were jumbled by the time the first lap had been completed. And the very wide pit straight was destined to become an action packed place, as the sheer amount of tarmac available encouraged many drivers to try different lines on the approach to Turn 1 throughout the race, in order to gain places. Thomas Accary got it wrong on the second lap and ended up facing the wrong way, but Christian Hohenadel made a better job of it when he passed Matt Bell’s #23 Audi in the #101 Corvette at the same spot two laps later.

At the head of the field Martin – while unable to pull out a significant advantage over Guilvert – was looking confident and was maintaining the second and a half gap that he had managed to build.

The #5 Audi was similarly holding off the Porsche and these places would remain unchanged to the stops.

But things were more dynamic further back in the field; the most obvious action at this point being the fight for seventh, where the #87 Chad Ferrari of Diego Alessi was at the head of a seven-car train of cars. So close was this fight that the red 430 Scuderia – already struggling for grip – fell to the back of this queue in the course of just one lap. This would not be a happy race for the Italian, and it would end with a lurid spin at the final corner on lap 17; after which he reversed the car into the gravel and, after realising that he was going no further, rather alarmingly ran across the pit straight. This resulted in Piers Masarati being summoned to the Race Stewards for an explanation.

As Alessi was losing ground on lap seven, Bell was retaking the place he had earlier lost to Hohenadel with a very assertive move along the pit straight. But the Callaway driver was more interested in where his only title-challenger, Mike Parisy’s #16 Graff ZO6R, was; and the answer was a disastrous 17th. The Frenchman was fighting hard with the Porsche of Niki Lanik in an attempt to improve his position, but was simultaneously in danger of further demotion as the #3 Rosberg Audi of Kenneth Heyer pushed him hard.

As the pit-window approached, the third-placed Holzer was shown the black and white flag for exceeding the track limits, while a lap later Accary was given a drive-through for a repeat offence in the #2 Hexis Aston.

Lanik was the first stopper after the 25-minute mark was passed, and 2007 champion Gilles Vannelet took over. One lap later, Hohenadel handed over the #101 Corvette to Daniel Keilwitz.

As the stops continued, the action continued out on track; and at the half-way point Edward Sandström took the #76 Schubert BMW Z4 round the outside of Jan Seyffarth’s #33 Black Falcon Audi through turns 9 and 10 to take sixth place with a simply stunning move.

The leaders, as expected, left it late to pit. Guilvert was first, with 27 minutes remaining, and Pierre Hirschi took over the #5 Audi, while both Martin and Holzer left it another lap before coming in. Martin’s stint had been flawless and when Gael Lesoudier took the Ford down the pitlane ahead of Paul Van Splunteren in the Porsche, things were looking good for a strong result. When Hirschi arrived at the first corner, he could see that he had dropped to second, and he didn’t help matters when he then ran wide and fell further back.

Zak Brown similarly did himself no favours when he had a spin at the same corner in the #23 United Autosports Audi while defending from the #76 BMW of Patrick Söderlund.

With all stops completed, and with 20 minutes remaining, the top ten was 99-61-5-100-76-101-4-1-23-60. Lesoudier’s lead was just over two seconds, but Van Splunteren was pushing him relentlessly.

That lead almost disappeared completely when the Ford went wide at the final corner, allowing the Porsche to close right up. Lesoudier appeared to have stabilised the gap, but on lap 24 the Prospeed car saw a gap down the inside of the leader and went for it. The two cars were side by side through the tight left-hander, but it initially looked as though contact would be avoided. As the two cars emerged from the bend, however, a slight contact was enough to see both cars spin; it wasn’t clear where fault lay, but the Porsche recovered more quickly than the Ford did. We did, though, have a new leader, as Hirschi found himself passing Van Splunteren before the Dutch driver was back up to speed.

The Porsche was quickly back up to speed and was soon challenging for the lead again. The Audi and the Porsche crossed the line together at the end of lap and the #61 was back ahead by the time T1 arrived.

All this incident had the effect of closing the top five cars right up, with Hirschi dropping to fifth after a spin. But potentially the most significant moment of the race was happening elsewhere on the track as Joakim Lambotte was pitched into the gravel after a right-rear puncture. The #16 Graff Racing Corvette was out of the race and Keilwitz now had a clear run to the title.

But this news didn’t cause the German driver to back off in any way, and he was right behind Söderlund as the BMW challenged for the lead. Van Splunteren closed the door on the Swede, but the Z4 looked to be the quicker of the two leaders. Before he could try again, however, the right-rear tyre began to deflate and Söderlund was forced to peel off into the pits. This left Keilwitz right on Van Splunteren’s tail, and with nine minutes of the race remaining, the Corvette powered past the Porsche to take the lead. The Porsche driver had no answer and began to drop back.        

While the fight for the lead appeared to be over, there was still one more podium place to be determined; and it would go to a car that was in the midst of an excellent recovery drive.

Having had his spin just after taking over the #23 Audi from Matt Bell, Zak Brown was powering his way through the field. He had recovered to sixth as Keilwitz took the lead, and then demoted the #1 Aston of Manuel Rodrigues and the #100 Corvette of Marius Ritskes on successive laps to find himself on the tail of Lesoudier’s Ford. At the start of lap 31, with just over three minutes remaining, the American powered past the #99 and was up into third.

Pierre Hirschi’s unhappy afternoon ended with a collision at T1 with the #14 Ford of Mikko Eskelinen shortly afterwards, but nothing could stop Daniel Keilwitz from taking his and Christian Hohenadel’s fourth win of the season and the FIA GT3 title.

“It means a lot to me to be the European Champion," said Hohenadel. "It’s the most famous title I’ve won in my career, so I’m very happy. I’m very proud to drive the car with Daniel, because he did a very good job this year. I think it’s very important for the team and everybody. It was very hard this year. It might look easy from outside, but we’ve worked a lot, we’ve thought a lot. We have done a lot testing and stuff. I think the whole team, the drivers, everybody, has done a very good job. It looks so easy, but it was hard. My goal in the race was to keep going; staying in my position, or losing one or two places didn’t matter. There were a few slower cars in front of me, and the pressure came from behind. We did an early pitstop and Daniel did the rest.”

 “I’m very happy," added Keilwitz. "I can’t believe it now that we’ve won the championship. I’m so happy, as this is the first title of my career. Christian was a good partner this year. He did a very good job, the team did a very good job. We worked hard for this goal and now we’ve done it. I’m very happy now. The next target will be to try and win the team championship as well. At the beginning I was being really careful, because I knew the French team was behind us, and I knew I only had to finish the race. The team told me on the radio that we were out of the race. Then I began to push and I think I made it to first position because our tyres weren’t as worn out as the others, as we were careful at the beginning with the tyres. I’m very happy with every win.”

Paul Van Splunteren ended a great weekend for himself and Marco Holzer with a second place to add to their Saturday win, while Zak Brown ended the race just two seconds behind in third and only eight seconds behind the leader after United Autosports’ best showing of the season.

“I got a really good start today," said Holzer. "I got from P5 to P3, then I stayed in my position until the pitstop and then I handed it over to Paul and then we finished second today. I’m really happy, the car was fantastic this weekend, especially with our first win of the season yesterday. I think this weekend has also been good for the championship for us, as we’re now third, coming up from P6 before the weekend. It’s been good for Porsche and for Prospeed.”

“Initially I thought the #99 Ford was as quick as me, but then I had some more speed in the car, and the team told me to find a good spot and take it easy," explained Van Splunteren. "And I thought there was the best spot to do it. I thought I was clearly next to him. But maybe I underestimated the visibility that these guys have in their Ford GT. So maybe he didn’t count on it that I’d try that right away.  So we both touched, and it wasn’t hard, it was just a nudge, but it spun us around hard, which was also very sad for me, and for Marco who was a little sad that he didn’t get first place because we were capable of winning. But that’s how it goes, and it was a very difficult spot to judge. After that I had some problems to get up to speed again because of the clutch. Then tried to survive and stay second. I couldn’t keep up with the Corvette. In the last 10 minutes, our tyres were just going off. I just had to try and do the best. Coming home with P2 and P1 is a great result for the team. The car was great, even though it was having a hard time in these temperatures. I’m very happy to have been 1st and 2nd, and I think it’s been my best result ever in a European championship. Marco’s used to winning, but I’m not, so I’m very glad.”

“I didn’t have a great start," said Matt Bell. "I spent the first lap going backwards. I was having a bit of trouble with the handling of the car for the first two laps. I think I lost three places or so on the first lap. Then I managed to get it together and the car started to come to me a little bit. I managed to catch up those who’d gone past me and I managed to catch up with the Corvette and the Ferrari on the straight and held it there for a while. It was pretty good. Towards the end of the stint, I really started to struggle. I pulled away from the Corvette and he reeled me back in pretty quickly. I lost touch with the cars in front and spent my last 5 laps of my stint defending. It felt like the tyres had gone off a bit, so I was worrying by the time I handed it over to Zak. This position is something we’ve been working towards all year, but we’ve never quite got there. It’s a team achievement, ‘cos we’ve had a big struggle this weekend up until that race. We rebuilt the whole car last night to get to that point. To be top Audi is a credit to the team. Zolder will be another challenge, another track I haven’t been to, so I’m looking forward to it.”

“It’s great," said a happy Zak Brown. "It’s what we hoped for at the start of the season, and it wasn’t looking like we’d get here. Richard Dean, who runs the team, really all credit to him and his crew, and the engineers. Audi’s been really responsive. We’ve had some challenges this weekend and they were there for us every time and I just couldn’t be happier. I had a lot of fun out there. I think they were going off a little bit and in a few more laps, I did have a spin at the start, so I probably kicked myself for a while about that, because that may have cost us a step or two on the podium, but we’re very happy, it was a fun race, and we’re really looking forward to Zolder. I raced there about 18 years ago and I think I remember it, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Lesoudier finished fourth with the #99 Ford, while Rodrigues brought the #1 Aston home in fifth ahead of Csaba Walter’s #77 BMW Z4; the Hungarian having taken three places on the final two laps to take sixth.

The final two races of the 2010 season take place at Zolder on October 9th/10th.

MH