Tomas Biagi posing with fellow Pole winner, Pedro Lamy
SRT
Gillet
Thomas Biagi
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SRT
SPA. SRT will start tomorrow in the 60th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa. Yesterday, SRT driver Christophe Bouchut was on his way to provisional pole when a terrible crash ended his qualifying session. Despite the impact and the consequences for the car, the team managed to get the car ready again and SRT will be on the start grid tomorrow. "It's difficult to express my feelings, the boys did such a wonderful job and I can hardly imagine a way to say thank you", explains Patrick Selleslagh.
A few minutes before the end of the first qualifying session, Christophe Bouchut, provisionally second, was setting down a stunning lap, but right before the end of the lap he went off heavily. He even spent some hours in the hospital. "But I didn't want to stay there, my place was with the boys, my first thoughts after the crash went out to them, as they worked so hard for the last couple of weeks. We now have to perform strongly in the race, that's the only correct way to thank them", explains Christophe Bouchut.
SRT also wants to thank every other team helping them to get everything ready again.
All four SRT drivers (Christophe Pillon (Sui), Xavier Maassen (Hol), Christophe Bouchut (Fra) and Maxime Soulet (Bel)) will start the race and the team defends its second place in the driver's championship.
Gillet
Belgian Racing excapes dissater
Spa Finally the practice sessions ended well for the Gillet Vertigo.5 but the team avoided a disaster. In his first lap of the qualifying, Bas Leinders, suffered a suspension failure, luckily the Belgian was able to avoid contact with the barriers. He brought the car back to the pits and the team repaired the car so the three drivers were able to do their compulsory laps in the night practice.
Bas Leinders."In the free practice the car # 2 with Ramos behind the wheel hit my front left wheel. Besides some bodywork there was no apparent damage on the car but unfortunately two bolds broke off anyway due to the impact with the Maserati. "
Tony Gillet:"It is a shame that we had this problem as it compromised severely our performance in the qualifying. But finally we are very happy with the overall performance of the car. Maxime Martin adapted very well to the car and we are confident for the race"
The team decided not to run in the Friday practice session to prepare the car serenely for the race. It is the last Belgian Formula 1 driver, Bas Leinders who will take the start of the race on Saturday at 16h. Bas will of course not be present at the Hungarian F1 Grand Prix this weekend to commentate for the Belgian TV, but he will be replaced by the father of Maxime (Jean-Michel Martin four time winner of the 24h of Spa) who will take over the duties of Bas next to Gaetan Vigneron, in this way everything stays in the family.
Thomas Biagi
SPA (BEL), 1ST of August - During the 3rd and final qualifying session of Total 24H of Spa on Friday, the fastest lap time in GT2, set by Thoma Biagi during the first qualifying session on Thursday evening, was not improved. So after this session it was sure that the AF Corse no. 51 Ferrari was on pole in GT2 for the 60th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa!
At the press conference after this final qualifying session Thomas said that he was very happy with his first pole position in GT2 and that it was his most beautiful and most important one up so far in his career. He said that there were mixed feelings at the AF Corse team after the qualifying sessions on Thursday. Their team mates in the no. 50 Ferrari had problems during night qualifying and they couldn’t drive during this session. This forced the no. 50 to start from the back of the grid.