Success ballast impeded SRT's chances at Adria
SRT
PK Carsport
Thomas Biagi
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SRT
SRT-duo Maassen-Bouchut retain lead in FIA GT
ADRIA. For SRT the relatively quiet period came to an end this weekend. The third race of the FIA GT-championship at Adria (Italy) was on the agenda. And as leaders in the championship SRT travelled on down to this short and sinuous Adria circuit, in the close vicinity of Venice, with no less than a 50 kilo success ballast in the Corvette C6.R. Xavier Maassen and Christophe Bouchut did more than their share of the work and finally the duo finished as fourth and the SRT drivers remain leader in the championship. For Patrick Selleslagh's team another busy period is looking down on them, with no less than three races over three consecutive weekends. Next weekend the team will be competing in the fourth meeting of the French GT- championship at Val de Vienne.
Free practice ran smoothly for SRT and the team concentrated on the Corvette's set-up. "Adria is exceptionally different; in fact the complete opposite from Monza", Patrick Selleslagh explains. "It is a short and sinuous circuit, whereas Monza is an extremely fast track On top of that we have 50 kilos of ballast to deal with, the outcome of our victory in Monza. Not only does ballast represent weight but is also has quite an impact on the car's set-up, tyre wear, the brakes and so forth. So lots of work, and those 160 minutes of free practice are more than welcome."
Qualifying went reasonably well, with a fifth place for Christophe Bouchut, a mere few tenths off pole. "However after the qualifying sessions it appeared that I had crossed the white line in the 'S' just after the pitlane, and we lost our fastest time", the fast Frenchman explained. But an amalgam of penalties and sanctions resulted in the SRT Corvette still finally being allowed to start .from fifth spot on the grid.
The French-Dutch duo in the SRT Corvette had a trouble free race, and after two hours of intense racing on a boiling hot circuit Maassen and Bouchut took the chequered flag in fourth place.
Patrick Selleslagh: "We knew that our ballast wouldn't play to our advantage and therefore opted for a somewhat more conservative approach, and a fifth, fourth place was our target. Xavier and Christophe drove a perfect and highly sensible race opting to go for the points. The outcome is that we can now add five units to our score, making a total of twenty points, and we're still up front in the championship. I would never have dreamt that SRT would be heading off for the fourth race of the championship as leaders. I secretly hope that we're still in the lead after the Oschersleben round, because to be able to come on down to Spa and the 24 Hours as leaders would be truly something unhoped-for."
SRT is now preparing for the fourth meeting of the French GT-championship in Val de Vienne.
PK Carsport
Bad luck strikes again for Anthony Kumpen and Bert Longin
ADRIA. 2008 seems to be a rather difficult year for the ambitious driver pairing Kumpen-Longin. After the bad luck in the Belgian GT Championship and the difficult start in the FIA GT, Kumpen and Longin were confident to put down a strong performance in Adria, the third round of the FIA GT Championship. But things turned out in a different way when Kumpen was hit out after only 11 laps and had to retire.
The beginning of the weekend was rather positive. "Indeed", confirms Bert Longin. "We were tenth and sixth in both free practice sessions and that was a decent result after the difficulties in Silverstone and Monza. We wanted to do even better in qualifying and that's why we slightly changed the set-up of the car, as we suffered little oversteer during both free sessions. But after all it wasn't a good decision. The car was now far more difficult to drive, being very much understeer. Finally we qualified in 12th position, a disappointment after all."
For the race the team decided to use the set-up of the free practice. Anthony Kumpen took a good start and after only five laps he came through in 9th position. "The car behaved very well and after only a few laps, I was setting down the same lap times as the frontrunners. It felt like a relief. All the hard work seemed to pay off and we were on the right way. Until a Vitaphone Maserati hit me out, leaving me behind with a broken suspension. The driver was already pushing for a few laps and he made a mistake I guess. He will even receive a punishment, but will not make our day anymore. Our race did only last for 11 laps. Of course we are all very disappointed, as we really believed to put down a strong performance here in Adria. This is like a nightmare for the boys of the team, the sponsors and all the fans. But let's try to be positive, we're sure that our car is able to perform well and we'll try to prove this in Oschersleben in two weeks time."
PK Carsport will now prepare for the next race in Oschersleben, Germany in two weeks time. Oschersleben will be the first race of a series, with the summer highlight in Spa during the classic Spa 24 Hours.
Thomas Biagi
ADRIA - "Beginning of this season we ranked fourth in Silverstone, then we got third in Monza and then second. Let's stop here... At the start of the race I suffered for the behaviour of one of my colleagues, senior and experienced driving in a different class than mine, who blocked my way, loosing his time in the attemp of frustating me rather than defining his strategy. Once I shook off everything was fine, but the race was then damaged, breakes were even stretching for the high temperature. During last stint I forced at maximum in order to restrain the rageful comeback of Ferrari from Bms Scuderia Italia. I'm very much sastified of the second place too: Gimmi Bruni would in any case be out of reach for us. We have consolidated our second rank and are more optimistic for the next proofs in Germany and the most important one in Spa that will be fundamental in detemining the candidate for this GT2 Championship."