FIA GT Championship

Jetalliance Racing before Nogaro

© Planetlemans - Frank Feenstra

The FIA GT Championship is bound for an incredibly dramatic season final! No less than nine drivers, all within seven! points, are still in the title chase with two races to go. Among those as well: Karl Wendlinger and his partner Ryan Sharp. The question: Will there be some sort of preliminary decision as early as this penultimate weekend at Nogaro?
Karl Wendlinger doubts it. “Provided that we’ll all escape retirement. Then a great final race at Zolder is a certainty”, the Austrian says, who is in top form this year. The stats show it too: With an index of 3.1 (an average over all qualifyings), Karl is by far the best qualifier this year, followed by Dutchman Mike Hezemans with 4.0, a considerable margin.

“The same basically applies to the races”, Jetalliance Racing’s Engineering Director Othmar Welti knows, “if we just look at the races that Karl was able to finish this year, he leads this classification as well. This clearly emphasises how well he – as well as the entire team – performs.”

Wendlinger’s Jetalliance Aston Martin DBR9 will be burdened with even more weight after the second place finish in Brno – in France, it will amount to a total of 70 kilos! “A lot of ballast, no question”, Wendlinger knows, “but I’ll simply accept it and then try to drive the car to its full potential. I’m confident because parts of the track are quite similar to Adria – and that’s where we were quick as well.”

Robert Lechner, who together with Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer will try to finish in the points again, has great memories of Nogaro: “It was ten long years ago”, the Austrian reminisces, “I was running my first ever race in the European Formula Renault championship back then and right away, I finished third behind two French drivers. This time, there aren’t so many Frenchmen competing – let’s wait and see what’s possible”, Robert jests.

Lichtner-Hoyer: “We’re currently classified third in the teams’ classification – and we want to keep this podium position. Robert and I will give it our all in order to be able to help this cause.”

_{(Jetalliance Racing)}