Corvette breaks Ford stranglehold at top of podium

It had to happen, although it took until the mid-point of the season. Finally, a race in the 2008 FIA GT3 European Championship has been won by a car which isn’t a Ford GT. In the second race at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, it was the No.38 MM-Racing Corvette Z.06R GT3 of Martin Matzke and Jiri Skula which took the chequered flag first, ahead of two La Torre Motorsport Dodge Viper Competition Coupe cars – second place went to the No.42 pair of Gabriele Sabatini and Giuseppe de Pasquale, ahead of the sister No.43 duo of Dino Lunardi and reigning champion Gilles Vannelet.

 

Safety Car and pit-stops shake up the order

The race took place in hot, dry conditions – but it seemed that, in general, cooler heads prevailed at the start. There were only a couple of incidents – the No.10 Hexis Racing Aston Martin DBRS9 ran wide at the first corner, and on the long right-hander which follows, contact was made between the No.2 Martini Callaway Corvette and the No.20 Matech GT Racing Ford GT of Ian Khan and Thomas Mutsch. The pair led the Drivers’ standings prior to this race, but the car collected a puncture in the incident, forcing Mutsch to head for the pits and dropping them completely out of contention.

 

After the opening lap the top ten settled down, with the No.1 Martini Callaway Corvette of Arnaud Peyroles and James Ruffier ahead of the No.11 JMB Racing Ferrari F430 GT3 of Pascal Ballay and Bruce Lorgeré-Roux, with the No.26 Team Berlanga Ascari KZ1R GT3 of Martin Rich and Andrew Thompson in third. After a few laps the Ascari began to challenge the Ferrari ahead of it, looking for a way past into the first corner; on lap 10 Thompson made it work, pulling out of the slipstream and diving past under braking.

 

The top order didn’t change for the next few laps – but then, just after the pit window had opened, two cars spun in separate incidents at the first corner. The safety car was then sent out, to allow the cars to be recovered – and the teams now had a dilemma. The regulations dictate that the driver who is in the higher category starts race 2, where the two drivers are of different categories; so should the teams make their compulsory pit-stop under the safety car, or stay out and bet on the quicker driver being able to make time up when the track was clear?

 

The former proved to be the way to go, because clearing the two cars took so long that the safety car was out for the remainder of the pit-stop window. The main beneficiary was the No.38 Corvette, which had been seventh before the pit-stops; coming in as soon as they could vaulted Skula and Matzke to the front of the field, a place they held from there to the finish. Behind them the No.26 Ascari was second – but they then got a stop-go penalty because their pit stop was, agonisingly, one second too short. That promoted the No.28 Marc Sourd Racing Corvette of Johan Charpilienne and Marc Sourd to second, but by now the action at the front was fast and furious.

 

Furious battles at the front of the race

With Sourd trying to challenge Matzke, while in turn coming under pressure from the No.42 Viper, every lap was like a qualifying lap – ‘maximum attack’, as one driver put it. Sourd made a small mistake under braking and spun across the grass, rejoining in fifth place. At this stage the No.1 Corvette was up to third, but lost the place under intense pressure from the No.43 Viper; Peyroles did his utmost, but was unable to regain the place by the time the race ended.

 

The leading Ferrari was the No.5 Kessel Racing car of Cadei and Balbiani, sixth after climbing three places in the final five laps; they came home 3.4s ahead of the No.9 Hexis Racing Aston Martin of Julien and Manuel Rodrigues, who were in turn just 0.2s clear of the No.39 Mühlner Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S of Thomas and Jirik. Their stop-go penalty dropped the No.26 Ascari of Rich and Thompson to ninth; the leading APEX Motorsport Jaguar XKR was the No.2 entry of Hissom and Clucas.

 

But what of the previously all-conquering Ford GT? The No.19 car of Luca Pirri and Jürgen von Gartzen, which won the first race the day before, was running in the top four before the pit-stops, but then dropped back; their race ended when the No.11 JMB Racing Ferrari spun in front of them, and Pirri was unable to avoid hitting it. After its first-lap puncture the No.20 car dropped back to 35th; Mutsch fought back, setting the fastest lap of the race, but the deficit was too great. Worse news was to come; for causing an avoidable incident and not respecting blue flags when a lap down, the stewards handed Khan and Mutsch a five-place grid penalty for the next race. And while the No.21 Ford GT of Ellis and Mortimer was the first Ford home, they struggled through the entire race with serious brake problems, finishing more than a minute down in seventeenth place.

 

Having failed to score at Oschersleben, Khan and Mutsch have now lost the lead of the Drivers’ Championship to Peyroles and Ruffier, although there are only three points between them. Bradley Ellis remains third, four points further back, with Mortimer in fourth. Matech GT Racing continue to head the Teams’ Championship, 33 points clear of La Torre Motorsport.

 

The teams now have a long break, to rest and recuperate, before the second half of the season gets under way with a trip to the picturesque Brno circuit, in the Czech Republic, in September. With six races remaining, the battle at the top of the Drivers’ Championship is closing up – the series could well be decided at the final event, in Dubai at the beginning of December.

 

2008-07-06
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