© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat
The opening round of the 2009 FIA GT Championship at the Silverstone circuit this afternoon turned out to be a rather chaotic one. Pit stop mistakes, a safety car period but also a dominating K plus K Motorsport team were some of the ingredients of today’s race.
As the lights went green it was Karl Wendlinger in the #14 K plus K Motorsport Saleen S7R who kept the lead, after starting from his ninth pole position, as the cars went into Copse corner for the first time in the race. Behind him the two Maserati followed, but Wendlinger showed his intentions and pulled away immediately.
Wendlinger’s lead increased in the opening laps as the Austrian kept posting fastest lap times. Five laps into the race the Marc VDS Racing Ford GT was already coming in to serve a stop&go penalty after the car was refuelled on the starting grid.
With Wendlinger extending his lead to seven seconds the most interesting fight was further down the field where team mate Adam Lacko was in a close fight with Guillaume Moreau and Mike Hezemans. Even further down the track five GT2 cars were fighting for second place, behind race leader Gianmaria Bruni in the #50 AF Corse Ferrari. In lap 10 things went wrong for the #78 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari of Heyer as he spun at turn 14.
On lap 17 the race leaders caught up with the GT2 cars and encountered heavy traffic. In the fighting GT2 group Collard’s ProSpeed Porsche #60 cut through the field quite easily and within a matter of laps he was already in second place. Moreau and Lacko passed Hezemans on the same lap.
The pit lane opened for the first of two stops on lap 20 and several teams immediately went for it. But for several teams things really went wrong. The #13 Full Speed Racing Team Saleen S7R completely missed his pit space and the team needed no less than three attempts to get the car back in a place where they could refuel it. The AF Corse team also made a mistake and dropped their car back to the ground, with no wheels yet attached to the car. Fortunately it was quickly back on its jacks again and not much time was lost.
At Vitaphone Racing Alex Müller came in to hand over the #2 Maserati MC12 to Miguel Ramos. After the Portuguese driver had gone in and tyres had been mounted the car was dropped and stormed away, the mechanic at the left rear wheel frantically waving that something went wrong and that he wasn’t ready yet. At the first pit box the Nissan GT-R came in and was soon pushed into the box to be retired due to a broken suspension. Tim Sugden slammed his Trackspeed Porsche into the wall at Becketts.
Out on the track Ramos started to suffer problems with the left rear wheel and after smoke was coming out he came to a halt in the middle of the track. As a result the safety car was deployed. While most teams had already completed their pit stop there was one of the top cars that took advantage of the safety car when it made its pit stop, the Vitaphone Racing Team #1. When the team had made their pit stop and the safety car waved cars by to sort out the order of the race Bartels in the #1 car was already 37 seconds ahead of Sharp in the #14 Saleen.
As the safety car came in the gap between Bartels and Sharp was back ton 3 seconds but the rest of the field did not have the chance to catch up and lost a lot on the two leaders, Maassen, in third place, was almost 18 seconds back at the restart. In GT2 Collard and Vilander were so close to each other that there was contact a couple of times.
Fortunately for the Czech team the speed of the K plus K Motorsport Saleen S7R was very good and within a handful of laps Ryan Sharp had closed the gap to Michael Bartels again. On lap 41 the Briton made his move at Stowe and passed Bartels to take the lead of the race again. The #13 Saleen retired in the box on lap 42.
From lap 45 on the teams came back in again for their pit stops. Sharp handed over to Wendlinger on lap 49, with the Vitaphone Maserati staying out. Two laps later it came in and the German team decided to double stint the tyres, resulting in very quick pit stop. Bertolini took over the car and came out on the track right in front of Wendlinger’s Saleen.
With the race coming towards the end the battle for victory in both GT1 and GT2 were on, Wendlinger and Bertolini were close but Westbrook and Bruni were also nose-to-tail.
On lap 55 the GT1 leaders hit traffic again, Wendlinger saw an opportunity and used the traffic to pass Bertolini and retake the lead of the race. Bertolini followed close though.
In GT2 there was some luck for Richard Westbrook in his battle with Bruni. At Luffield the Italian’s AF Corse Ferrari suddenly went off the track and after sliding through the gravel with what looked like a locked front wheel the car ended up in the gravel. Westbrook passed the stranded Ferrari and went into a comfortable lead.
Wendlinger kept his cool and steered his Saleen around Luffield and Woodcote and onto the Pits Straight where he crossed the chequered flag. Some 5.5 seconds behind him it was the #1 Maserati taking second place with Moreau securing the third and final podium place for the Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette team.
Richard Westbrook took a well deserved victory for ProSpeed Competition, with the Pecom Ferrari F430 GT finishing in second place, almost 13 seconds behind. The #56 CRS Racing Ferrari completed the top three in GT2.
Matech GT Racing was the best of the 2010-spec GT1 cars, taking the final point of the race by finishing in eight overall.
The full result can be found here.
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