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FIA GT Championship
– Adria – Race Report Karl Wendlinger’s accident in qualifying, after he set the pole time on Friday evening, meant a late night for some of the Jetalliance mechanics (5 am), but in the two hour race on Saturday evening, almost everything went smoothly for the team’s #33 Aston Martin, although the margin of victory was less than it might have been, over the Playteam Maserati of Andrea Betolini and Andrea Piccini. While the GT1 winner won from the front, Dirk Muller and Toni Villander won GT2 from the back (after losing their qualifying time) in the #50 AF Corse Ferrari, these two heading a team 1-2, just a tenth or two ahead of the Bruni / Ortelli car. Rather than half the race being run in daylight, as we thought, only a few minutes were in anything like daylight, the sun going down just before the race started.
Wendlinger held the lead into the first corner, but that wasn’t a happy place for GT1 championship leader Thomas Biagi. He and Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer (in the #36 Jetalliance Aston Martin) made contact – and Biagi’s #1 Vitaphone Maserati lost eight laps with rear suspension damage. “All I can say about the racing incident with Biagi is that I was on the inside, and he closed the door. It wasn’t my fault,” commented Lichtner-Hoyer. “I think it was done on purpose,” said an irate and irrational Biagi. He and Michael Bartels ended up 22nd, still those eight laps behind. All of a sudden, Biagi’s nine point lead was (two hours later) reduced to… just three in the end, over Bertolini and Piccini.
But things were going well for Karl Wendlinger, who teased out a slight lead over Christian Montanari in the other Vitaphone MC12. Fabio Babini got ahead of Mike Hezemans at the start, and around the tight track, the racing was extremely close. Hezemans had Kumpen in the PK C5-R right on his tail, and Peter Kox was snapping at the heels of Kumpen’s car, in the #28 Lamborghini, having lost the place to the Belgian on lap 4. Bouchut in the other Lamborghini had pitted at the end of the first lap – for a planned driver change. The teams had been advised that pit stops actually at the start were not allowed any more. Instead of having to fight through the GT2s, Bouchut found himself among the leaders. The #74 Porsche pulled the same ‘early stop move’ at the end of lap 2.
Dirk Muller, starting the #50 AF Corse Ferrari, was still ‘only’ fifth in class by lap 10, behind the two Edil Cris cars, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari and Sean Edwards in the Tech 9 Porsche – but Muller was only five seconds behind the leader, Paolo Ruberti. Muller had passed both Scuderia Ecosse Ferraris, and the #97 BMS Porsche – and his only looming problem was with his headlights (he had no illumination for a lap or two), but he switched to fog lights for a while, before his main lights started working again.
Lap 10 saw Babini take second from Montanari, but Wendlinger was nearly six seconds ahead by then – although Fabio managed to keep it to ten seconds by 20 laps, partly because (or despite the fact that) he had Mike Hezemans snarling away just behind. Anthony Kumpen was a few seconds back in fourth, Montanari in fifth and slipping back towards Bertolini in the #11 Playteam Maserati. It was the #11 car that would unobtrusively make its way up the order, from a fairly lowly (eighth) starting position, Piccini explaining that the team had chosen a harder compound of Pirellis, which they expected would be more suitable for the race than for qualifying. Good choice. And so Fabio Babini came under increasing pressure from Mike Hezemans, finally losing second to the heavy (+70 kg of ballast) Corvette on lap 21. Lap 28, and just before anyone stopped for a conventional pit visit, Wendlinger led Hezemans by 16 seconds, while Babini, Kumpen, Montanari and Bertolini were all within 18 to 23 seconds of the leader. AF Corse was 1-2 in GT2 by this stage, the Edil Cris Ferraris fading somewhat, #52 having already pitted for a scheduled stop. Wendlinger was the last man to pit, after 43 laps, and Ryan Sharp still led when #33 returned to the track – by 14 seconds from Jean-Denis Deletraz and Jamie Davies. Piccini, Longin and Menten were next. Davies passed Deletraz for second on lap 50, at which point Piccini was 30 seconds behind Sharp. The Kumpen / Longin Corvette might have been further up the order, but for a sequence of spins, one of which had already occurred – two more to come – none of which seemed to be the fault of the Corvette drivers. Someone else tipped them into a spin each time – initially Bertolini on Kumpen – all the spins / contact coming at the same corner, the third one. Tim Mullen was third in GT2 at this stage, behind the AF Corse cars, but the #62 Scuderia Ecosse 430 had an interesting pit strategy ‘up its sleeve’.
Deletraz did a good job of keeping Davies’ Aston Martin in sight, and just before the #5 Corvette pitted on lap 58, Sharp led Davies by 16 seconds, with Deletraz six seconds behind and Piccini another nine back. The race seemed to be between these four, although Miguel Ramos was doing a good job in fifth, in #2 MC12. Hezemans took tyres at this stage, but once the Ramos and Piccini cars made their second stops (and didn’t take tyres - #2 did at its first stop, but #11 didn’t change at either stop), the C6.R dropped behind both to an eventual, and surprising, fifth place. Hezemans chased Montanari all the way to the flag, but couldn’t pass. The surprising change in the pattern came with the final stops for the #33 and #11 cars. Sharp pitted from the lead after 73 laps, leaving Piccini to set the #11’s fastest lap of the race on that lap, leading the race now, with a stop to come. Wendlinger didn’t take tyres (Sharp had been on fresh rubber), but it was a slow stop from the Jetalliance crew – the consequences of which became apparent when Bertolini took over #11 on lap 76. He reappeared right on #33’s tail. Suddenly we had a race to the finish – although as it had been all race, the #33 was still the fastest car in the field. Three-tenths became five, eight, a second, two seconds – and the #33 DBR9 was looking secure for a second win of the year. The gap was 3.5 seconds at the flag. “We lost a bit of time in the pit stops, and then I got quite close to my friend Andrea Bertolini,” said Wndlinger afterwards. “After Spa we weren’t really thinking about the title,” added Ryan Sharp. “We just want to get on the track and be as fast as we can, for the last few races, score as many points as we can and see where we end up.” No tyre changes had worked very well for the #11 Playteam Maserati, all the way from eighth on the grid to second place – and second in the championship, with Biagi in their sights. “I would like to dedicate this podium to a very important man for my city, and I think for all the world, Luciano Pavarotti,” said the gentlemanly Andrea Bertolini. “About the race, this is a very good result as we started towards the back and finished second, getting a lot of points, while Thomas Biagi unfortunately did not score any points. We are happy and would like to thank all the team and especially Pirelli as they did a lot of work, especially in the last month, and we are very confident for the rest of the season. Last year Michael Bartels and I won the Championship at this track – and Andrea Piccini my team-mate lost the Championship! This season we finished second, and I hope we will be a little lucky for the future.” “I would like to thank BMS as they have worked really hard since Spa,” said third-placed Jamie Davies. “They obviously had to prepare a new car after the last one was destroyed. The car has just run faultlessly over the weekend, Pirelli supplied us with some great tyres which were really consistent through the weekend. We were able to push quite hard and keep the car at competitive lap times. I think this consistency is what got us the podium today. It was very interesting to drive at night – it was a good spectacle for the spectators and the television. I enjoyed it – it was something new to have a sprint race going into the evening, and the floodlighting was good. Sometimes I kept thinking that a car was right behind me but I finally found out it was one of the floodlights! But it was good fun!” GT2’s pattern was finally set once Muller appeared from the #50’s second pit stop – just in front of Bruni in #51. These two carried on nose to tail to the finish, and were 50 seconds ahead of the Malucelli / Collard Porsche – although it looked as though Tim Mullen and Darren Turner might take the third podium position… except that with only a few minutes to go (seconds even), the #62 had still only pitted once. What was Stewart Roden up to? “We tried something new at the end with the last pit-stop and it almost paid off, but not quite. Darren came into the pits as the leading GT1 car crossed the line to take the chequered flag. He stopped at the beginning of the pit lane and Tim jumped in and took the car over the start/finish line in the pit lane. We got into trouble for this though but you have to try these things. Sometimes a bit of creative thinking pays off and sometimes…” “Got into trouble” actually meant excluded from the results. Oh how much simpler it would be if just one pit stop was required. Pompidou / Zani moved up to fourth and Edwards / Machitski to fifth. “We were obviously disappointed after Spa,” said second place man Stephane Ortelli, “so getting back on the podium is a really good thing for us. The race track was just perfect, it really didn’t seem like it was night that much. We had the best tyres and the best car which really helped us.” GT1 Driver
Points GT2 Driver
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