Wendlinger and Sharpe win FIA GT Round at
Silverstone to Retain the Tourist Trophy
04
May 2009
The sun shone on Silverstone this weekend for the Royal Automobile
Club Tourist Trophy, the first round of the 2009 FIA GT Championship.
Making a remarkable debut with the Saleen S7, Czech team K plus K Motorsports
took their maiden win at the British track, allowing Karl Wendlinger
and Ryan Sharp to retain the Tourist Trophy – the first time
this has happened since 1982. Therefore, Saleen will join the numerous
prestigious manufacturers whose names are inscribed on its base, featuring
such prestigious names as Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Ferrari.
The Vitaphone Maserati of Bartels and Bertolini finished second, with
newcomers Luc Alphand Aventures taking third in their Corvette C6R
for Moreau and Maassen – making three different makes in the
top three. In GT2, victory went to Prospeed Competition and the Anglo-French
duo of Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard, in their Porsche 997
GT3 RSR, ahead of Ferrari 430 GT2 cars entered by Argentine team Pecom
Racing, and British team CRS Racing.
The 2009 Silverstone round of the FIA GT Championship may have been
very different from that in 2008, with many new faces in terms of teams
and cars, and most especially in terms of the weather, but one thing
remained the same: Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp were victorious.
The duo, in a new car for a new team, put in a fine performance, pulling
out a lead in the early stages, before losing their advantage during
a mid-race safety car period. They were fighting throughout with the
nr 1 Vitaphone Maserati, which emerged ahead after an extremely fast
final pit stop and driver change. However, Wendlinger kept the pressure
on, overtaking the car when they caught up with a gaggle of backmarkers,
and maintaining a lead to cross the finish line 5.499 seconds ahead
of the chasing Maserati.
Wendlinger was delighted with the result : “The team put a lot
of effort into this race and we've done a lot of testing and preparation.
We weren't expecting to win the first race but we felt competitive.” Sharp
added : “It's been a fantastic race. It was great winning the
Tourist Trophy last year and winning the trophy twice and with a new
team and in the first race of the season is great.” With the
team’s second car of Adam Lacko and Mario Dominguez finishing
a fine 5th position, K plus K Motorsports has taken an early lead in
the GT1 Teams Championship.
The crew of the Maserati MC12 was pleased to start the season off with
a podium, but admitted they could not catch the Saleen, which they
considered to be in another class. However, the team’s skill
ensured a podium finish “It's been a really good start and we
delivered our best today and it still feels like a victory for us.
We did a perfect stint and had a good strategy, but honestly for us
it was impossible to win. I think this'll be a really difficult season
for us,” Bertolini commented. The second Vitaphone Maserati,
which qualified third after a fine performance from Alex Müller,
stopped on the track shortly after the first pit stop with a wheel
problem, while it had been lying third, bringing out the safety car.
Third across the line, and making it three makes in the top three places,
was the Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette C6R of Xavier Maassen and Guillaume
Moreau. “This first podium in this new championship feels like
a victory to me. We're all happy about it, us and the team. It's impossible
to feel better. I think we can improve a lot in qualifying. My pitstop
was good. After I has found out how to navigate the traffic I did some
good moves and I finished third, which is good for me and my team and
a good start for the year.”
The nr 4 PK Carsport Corvette of Hezemans and Kumpen was fourth, the
car having suffered from understeer throughout. With the second K plus
K Saleen fifth, a further two Corvettes were sixth and seventh, with
Longin and Ruffier taking three points for SRT, finishing ahead of
Menten and Palttala for DKR Engineering. Rounding off the top ten was
the first of the new generation GT1 cars, the Matech GT Racing Ford
GT of Thomas Mutsch and Thomas Biagi. Mutsch, in his first FIA GT race,
commented : “It's been unbelievable. The team have been doing
a lot of work over these last 4 months; we had all the development
to do with the new car, so we had 2 cars built at the end of March
and had the third one rolled out in April in Magny Cours, and one went
directly to Paul Ricard, and now we're here. In these past 4 weeks,
we've found a lot of things we've had to change, but we're really happy
with the amount we've managed to improve between Paul Ricard, Magny
Cours and here. I'm really happy and we haven't had the time to do
long runs before, so this was the first time that the car ran for two
hours in a row and I'm really happy and pleased that everything went
so well.”
GT2 saw an exceptionally close race, and a rather unusual one as none
of the cars in the top three over the finish line were in the top three
in qualifying. After a hard fight with the AF Corse Ferrari of Vilander
and Bruni, which had led for much of the race, Westbrook and Collard
were closing the gap in the nr 60 Prospeed Competition Porsche 997
GT3 RSR, when the nr 50 AF Corse car went off at Luffield, after a
wheel appeared to lock. This was the first time that triple Champions
AF Corse had finished off the podium since Spa 2007… The Porsche
was left with a relatively easy run to the chequered flag, with all-Argentine
team Pecom Racing finishing 12 seconds behind them, after a fine performance
from Matias Russo and Luis Perez-Companc, who also won the Citation
Cup. Their Ferrari had qualified ninth and started eighth, but they
opted to pit late and were therefore able to make the most of the safety
car period.
“This result was very unexpected,” commented Prospeed’s
Richard Westbrook. “We were feeling a bit down after yesterday.
We just couldn't get a hang of the car and qualified down in 7th.It's
a really tight field this year and the restrictions and penalties have
really closed things up. We had a great car today that worked over
a full stint. Everything worked and the team gave us a great car. It's
a good finish and a great start to the season. We were saying that
we'd be happy if we got 4th, so this is great, a hard fought victory.”
Luis Perez Companc, on his second FIA GT podium after San Luis 2008,
added : “This is really incredible, we can't believe it. We classified
in 8th yesterday, and started the race 9th, but we were very lucky
with the safety car and managed to make it up to third. I tired to
keep a good pace. Everything went okay, so it’s good. I'm still
learning how to race this car and was impressed with the times I was
setting around the track.”
Third went to Bell and Kirkaldy in the nr 56 CRS Racing Ferrari; like
Collard and Westbrook they are carrying 50 kg crew handicap ballast,
due to being two professional drivers, and struggled in qualifying.
In the race, however, they came to the fore and took another Silverstone
podium. “The race has gone okay, but we haven't had a great time.
Everything very close and it'll be a difficult year. We've got a good
car, which was good this morning and throughout the race. I think we
did a good job, and it was a good result. We've started competitive
but it'll be hard to be up here every race.”
BMS Scuderia Italia finished fourth with Malucelli and Ruberti, ahead
of AF Corse’s second car with newcomers Alvaro Barba Lopez and
Niki Cadei. Sixth went to the second Prospeed Competition Porsche of
O’Young and Holzer, giving Prospeed a healthy early lead in the
Teams classification. The Aston Martin Vantage V8 claimed its first
GT2 points, with a 7th place finish for Hexis Racing AMR and the duo
of Stefan Mücke and Frédéric Makowiecki, who had
to start from the back of the grid after losing their qualifying times
due to ride height problems. The final point went to fellow newcomers
Brixia Racing, with the Porsche of Luigi Lucchini and Martin Ragginger.
In the GT2 Manufacturers Cup, Ferrari leads Porsche and Aston Martin.
And so another exciting round of the Royal Automobile Club Tourist
Trophy has come to an exciting and successful end. John Godley, Motoring
secretary of the Royal Automobile Club, commented : “The members
of the Royal Automobile Club who attended the FIA GT Championship race
today were all delighted at the quality of the grid and the close racing
throughout. Down to the final laps, either of two cars, each driven
by previous winners of the trophy, could have claimed the victory.
That Sharp and Wendlinger won was a record for 20 years or more, and
this was achieved in a different car. The quality of the racing was
up to the best races in the past few years and of those in the 1960’s
when the likes of Stirling Moss were competing, and right back to the
1905-1908 editions, held on the Isle of Man. For over 100 years, the
Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy has been going strongly, and we’re
looking forward to next year !”
SRO
See 2009 series calendar for FIA
GT Championship
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