Quotes

Martin Rich – No.26 Team Berlanga Ascari KZ1R GT3: “We’re very optimistic for the races. This is our third year in the Championship, so we’re familiar with the way everything works, and we know what the competition is like. The performance balancing means the cars should all be very close to each other in performance terms, so the racing should be exciting. Even in the first practice session, a couple of tenths could make a big difference to your position. You can’t read too much into a test session, but it’s great to see a mixture of cars at the front. The cool temperatures made it difficult to get heat into the hard tyres; that will be key to going well in qualifying, although cars which heat their tyres quicker might then suffer over a race distance.”

 

Scott Maxwell – No.22 Matech Mustang Racing Ford Mustang FR5000GT: “Our morning session went well, although Eric de Doncker had a small run-in with a Morgan! This is my first visit to Silverstone, so I was concentrating on learning the circuit; I came here as a kid, and I remembered it as being long straights and high-speed corners – but it’s changed a lot. The Mustang is well suited to the fast corners, but it’s a big, heavy car, so braking for the slower corners can lose us time. The season should be good, as long as we can keep developing the car.”

 

Tom Cloet – No.40 Mühlner Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S: “We went well this morning – in fact, it went better than we expected for the first roll-out of the car. We have to work on our skills with the car, but that will come. We will do the best we can, of course; it’s difficult to predict how we will do, as the car is new, but from what we have seen so far, we feel we can be pretty competitive. We’re expecting some rain over the weekend, which should suit the car pretty well. I really enjoy this track, and the car is well suited to it as well.”

 

Thomas Mutsch – No.20 Matech GT Racing Ford GT: “This morning’s session went very well. I only did four laps before handing over to Ian Khan, so he can get comfortable with it. From here we can work on improving things. The tests we did at Nogaro and Monza showed us that the car should be very good and fast, so we’re aiming to be in the top five. We took pole position here last year, so we’re looking forward to qualifying.”

 

Richard Williams – No.6 Trackspeed Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S: “We’ve been running in the new car for this weekend. There are some things we want to try, and once we’ve done that, we’ll have a good idea how competitive we will be for the remainder of the season. Last year, with the 997 GT3 Cup, the season was a bit of a struggle, but it seems that Porsche have made a good step forward with the new car. We’re finding things out about it each time we go out, so we working to get a good result in qualifying and then have a clean race.”

 

Maurizio Fabris – No.46 Tech 9 Motorsport Lamborghini Gallardo GT3: “Our first run with the car was on Wednesday, so today was only the second time I’ve been out in it. We’ve made a few changes, which have worked well – we just need to get to grips with it. I think it can be competitive – once we’ve done qualifying, we should be in a position to get near the front runners. Silverstone isn’t a perfect track for the car – Oschersleben and Brno should suit it better. Here, we struggle on the long straights compared to the Corvette and Viper, although it’s very good through the quick corners such as Becketts.”

 

Matteo Malucelli – Team Manager, Brixia Racing Aston Martin DBRS9: “The car is good, and we are confident we can get a good result. We are here for the overall win, not just to participate. Although this is our first year in the Championship, we want to win the title. It’s ambitious, but we’ve got confidence in the car.”

 

Phil Quaife – No.33 APEX Motorsport Jaguar XKR: “I’m very happy with where we are after the practice sessions. I’ve been very impressed with the car, and the team is working well. I definitely think we’ve got the potential to do very well this weekend. The car is well suited to the track – it seems to love all the corners, fast and slow; anything we try, it copes with it and we’re still going forward – we haven’t had a single step backwards today. This is a big meeting for the team, after the tragic loss of Richard Lloyd, David Leslie and Chris Allerton – we’re pushing hard to deliver a good result, it’s the least we can do.”

 

2008-04-18
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