FIA GT3 - Qualifying Report
Very Different Sessions

Session 1
43 of the 47 cars promised on the entry emerged for qualifying with the #2 and #27 Corvettes and the #38 Lamborghini no-showing.

It was Rule Britannia with 5 minutes to go in the first 20 minute qualifying session of the 2008 FIA GT3 season, the top three cars all of UK extraction (on home ground) and of three different marques.

Just 0.096 of a second separated the #8 Hexis Racing Aston Martin of Thomas Accary from the #44 Gravity Racing Ascari of Michael Greenhalgh and then the #33 Apex Motorsport Jaguar XKR of Phil Quaife.

Quaife though wasn’t done yet and he leapfrogged the top two to head the times by over half a second, improving his time still further the next time around. Even an improved effort from 2007 Champion Gilles Vannelet, up into second place in the #43 La Torre Motorsport Viper (all three of the big Competition Coupes sporting a shade of yellow that recalls the 1994 Rent-A-Car RT10s) fell over half a second short.

It was left to Nicki Cadei in the #5 Kessel Racing Ferrari 430 to challenge closest, under three tenths the gap but, with a famous and emotional pole position looking almost certain it was snatched from the Jag’s grasp at the last moment.

Mikael Forsten’s #36 Prospeed Porsche took the pole, the 997 Cup S slicing a tenth or so off Quaife’s best effort.

With the first session done the top six times were set by different marques, Porsche, Jaguar, Ferrari, Dodge, Aston Martin and Ascari, those top six separated by 8 tenths of a second.

Best amongst the remaining marques were Arnaud Peyrolles (#1 Corvette) 9th, Ian Khan (#20 Ford GT) 12th, Maurizio Fabris (#46 Tech 9 Lamborghini) 15th, Ron Marchal, (#24 Mustang) 33rd and Gael Lesoudier (#29 Morgan) 34th

Session 2
Remarkably the top six cars in session two were again all different marques – perhaps even more remarkably they weren’t the same six as in session one!

Pole went to Thomas Mutsch’s # Ford GT with an almost suspiciously quick 1:50.237, Frederic Makowiecki’s Hexis Aston Martin next up, half a second back, with James Ruffier’s Martini Callaway Corvette third, over a second shy of pole.

Fastest Ferrari was the fourth placed #11 JMB car of Bruce Logere-Roux with the very welcome appearance of the #29 Morgan in fifth slot, Johan-Boris Sheier doing the honours for the Aero 8’s best qualifying performance yet.

Dino Lunardi’s #43 Dodge bottomed out the leading six, which had almost two full seconds separating them.

Even more extraordinarily an almost identical time from the two #33 Jaguar drivers left them second on the grid for race one and fifteenth for race two.

Best of the rest (of the GT3 marques) were Ben Clucas (#32 Jaguar) 8th, Richard Williams, (#6 Trackspeed Porsche) 9th, Howard Spooner, (#45 Gravity Ascari) 10th and Romain Bera, (#24 Mustang) 26th

Jurgen von Gartzen failed to set a time after leaving the circuit in the #19 Matech Ford GT and the #14 Lamborghini failed to set a time in session 2.

Ben Clucas: “That was very encouraging, I think there was a bit more to come but it’s a huge step forward for the team. I did the Spanish GT Championship last year in a GT2 Porsche and came within a point of the title (having missed the first race weekend!) so I’m enjoying this sort of racing. It’s a one race deal for now but of course I’d love to be here all year.”

Stuart Hall: “It’s my first ever time in a front engined GT car so its taking me a bit of time to adjust, I’m very pleased to have matched Phil’s time though this early on despite having very little track time yesterday (The team had to run three drivers in testing - Chris Ryan ran for a time – before Hall was cleared to race) and there is a lot more to come from the car. Pole would have been great but we are very hopeful of a good result for the team in the race.”

Nigel Greensall: “We have a steering issue (in the #23 Mustang) which is a real shame as I got to test the #22 car at Magny Cours and it was excellent. The team though have done an excellent job.”

Ian Khan: “That was OK but it could have been an awful lot better. I hadn’t realised there was a switch for the power steering and when I radioed in to tell the team the steering was overly heavy there was clearly a misinterpretation. Thomas’s (Mutsch) time though was excellent.”

Bradley Ellis: “It’s getting there now, but the car wasn’t anywhere near ready yesterday. We had problems with the gearbox, electrics, ecu. It feels good now but we’ve lost a lot of track time.”

Partner Ed Morris wasn’t as quick, but he’s had hardly any time in the car after yesterday’s dramas.

Jean-Pierre Jabouille – (Morgan Team Principal) – “It is a big step forward but it could have been even better. The team manager made an error and put on the tyres that should have been on the car for the pro driver, in the first session with our gentleman driver.”
GG

Rash Prediction Time
It’s neck on block time as, based entirely on statistics (therefore preserving editorial impartiality) the qualifying times for each of the drivers in GT3 are merged, averaged, pulled and skewed to see where IN THEORY they should all shake out at the end of the race. Taking the theory even further, it’s where they should end up at the end of both races, proof enough that this is of course all stuff and nonsense.

Based on averaging the qualifying positions and averaging the qualifying times, the podium should be made up of the #20 Ford GT, #1 Corvette and #43 Viper. Using the times as the basis suggests it will be in that order, using the positions reverses it. Bad luck #1, you are ‘guaranteed’ to finish second.

Interesting (or not) the top 10 cars are the same whichever figure you choose to average, so pick a realistic winner from 20, 1, 43, 36, 33, 11, 44, 25, 17 or 41. 1.3 seconds covers the average qualifying times for this lot.

Wooden spoon goes to the #18 Aston Martin, with an average lap time just over 9 seconds slower than Mutsch and Khan.
PS