FIA GT Championship

Second place for Pedro Lamy and Gabriele Gardel in 550

Pedro Lamy and Gabriele Gardel braved the 30 degree Italian heat to bring their Care Racing supported Larbre Ferrari 550 Maranello home in second place at the fourth round of the FIA GT Championship at Imola.

© Phil / Motorshots.com

The pair decided on an aggressive two-stop strategy which saw them finish 6 seconds clear of the third placed Maserati. The result moves Gardel to 3rd in the Drivers’ Championship on 27 points, and the Larbre Compétition team to 3rd in the Teams’ classification with 33 points. Lamy and Gardel crossed the line 19.264s behind the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, which scored its debut victory in the championship.

“It was very hot inside the car,” said Lamy after the race. “After the first stint, I was so hot, but I had time to cool down a little in the second hour and the third hour was actually better for me. We had a good set-up on the car and we drove to save the tyres, keep them consistent through the stint. I like to win, but second is good too! We were close on the fuel strategy. I had the feeling at the end of my second stint that the 575 in front of me would need to make another fuel stop, and so it did, but they decided to risk it and paid the price.”

Gardel added: “The car was really fast, but the last five laps of the stint were so difficult. I could not drive consistently through the second hour in temperatures more than 50 degrees centigrade inside the cockpit. It was hard to keep the concentration.”