FIA GT Championship

Reflections about Bucharest: singing in the (Romanian) rain

© Scuderia Playteam Sarafree

by guest editor Simon Melluish

After a few days to reflect and despite the rain, the inaugural FIA GT event through the heart of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, seems to have been a roaring success. Some 69,000 fans attended and it turned about to be a very eventful race……..

© DPPI / FIA GT

As the Sportscar world now turns its attention to La Sarthe, the Scuderia Playteam Sarafree Maserati squad has over a month to prepare for its renewed fight to win the FIA GT Championship. Here on the streets of Bucharest the Italian outfit came out of the shadows of champions Vitaphone Racing to announce themselves as Championship contenders.

The navy blue Maserati locked out the front row after an impressive weekend and the team held a comfortable 1-2 early in the race as rain swept through the Romanian capital. The race had started under the safety car due to the conditions but it wasn’t long before a trio of Maserati were making their dominance felt. Pier Guidi (Nr.12 Scuderia Playteam Sarafree Maserati MC12) lead from teamate Bertolini in the opening 20 minutes before an incident involving Lechner (Nr.36 Race Alliance Aston Martin DBR9) got into a head on collision with Kessel’s Ferrari that had already spun into the middle of the track.

© DPPI / FIA GT

The safety car was deployed and a flurry of pitstops commenced. Of the lead runners only Karl Wendlinger (Nr.33 Race Alliance Aston Martin DBR9) decided to stay out as a total change in the order was brought about because of the stops. The early lead car dropped to eighth and things would get worse for the Nr.12 when driver Giannoccaro got into Andrew Kirkaldy in the GT2 class Ferrari 430 whilst trying to put a lap on the Scotsman. The car was damaged on the left front and would retire in the pits. This was just one of many incidents as the wet surface as many drivers were caught out by the tricky conditions.

Meanwhile the All-Inkl.com Lamborghini’s were making steady progress and found themselves battling for 3^rd when Stefan Mucke (Nr.7) made a daring move around the outside of his teamate coming into the chicane. It was never going to work and both cars touched with Mucke lucky only to lose a wing mirror. Shortly after and the Nr.8 fell foul to some suspension problems that would take them out of the race.

With less than an hour to go the race up front began to settle down. Wendlinger made only his 1^st stop of the compulsory two and therefore handed over the lead to Andrea Piccini (Nr 11 Scuderia Playteam Sarafree Maserati MC12). The charge of both Vitaphone Racing Maserati was also starting to look ominous before the Nr.2 of Montanari/Ramos clipped the wall and had to pit for repairs.

© Vitaphone Racing

Jean Denis Deletraz was the next man to say hello to the concrete wall as he ruined all of his good work getting the Nr.5 Carsport Corvette up to 4th. He hit the wall fairly hard and retired the car in the pits.

In the final 40 minutes Thomas Biagi handed the Nr.1 Vitaphone Maserati back Fabrizio Gollin for the final stint but the car started to suffer problems and would eventually drop to 7^th by the end. The ever impressive Christophe Bouchut (Nr.7 All-Inkl.com Lamborghini) was now up to 2^nd following an out of sequence Ryan Sharp (Nr 33 Race Alliance Aston Martin) making his final stop that dropped them to 4th.

As all of this drama was unfolding behind the Nr.11 Scuderia Playteam Sarafree Maserati MC12 of Bertolini/Piccini had driven off into the sunset (well dark rain clouds actually!) and lead by nearly 40 seconds. They finally completed a comfortable win in front of an enthusiastic and wet Romanian crowd.

"I am really, really happy. We had a very bad start to the season, and this was our last possibility to come back for the Championship. As you can imagine, we pushed a lot for the title, and the points are now very close. This race was very important for the whole team." said a delighted Andrea Bertolini.
A special mention for the Romanian event as it is never easy to impress race drivers particularly on a wet street track but Championship leader Christophe Bouchut had this to say. "I know some people will complain, and it’s true that street circuits can be dangerous. But it’s easy to complain and to be critical, but you have to also look at the positive things, and from my point of view it is excellent to come to Romania, to race here for the first time, to visit new countries, to meet new people. For the Championship, this is really good." Race winner Andrea Piccini followed that up, "I would like to thank the Bucharest organization. They really did a great job. It cannot be easy to organize such an event, in the first year, and the fact that with the difficult conditions, we only needed to get the safety car out once. They moved the cars out of the way really quickly and did a great job, and we would like to thank them all." So all in all it was a successful 1^st event and hopefully it will be the first of many for the Romanian public.

We have to leave the final word for the Scuderia Playteam Sarafree Maserati team who are clearly right back in the championship. A win for an Italian team in an Italian car and now they have a month to prepare for what they hope will be another win at the spiritual home of Italian Motorsport, Monza.