FIA GT Championship

Jetalliance wins opening race of the FIA GT season

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

The first round of the FIA GT Championship at Silverstone was won by the Jetalliance Racing Aston Martin DBR9 of Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp. The pair beat the Maserati MC12 of Vitaphone Racing drivers Andrea Bertolini and Michael Bartels, with the Gigawave Motorsport Aston Martin DBR9 of Philipp Peter and Allan Simonsen finishing the race in third place.

The race got underway in treacherous conditions. The fog causes poor visibility and due to the rain that fell on Saturday and early on Sunday morning the track was quite slippery. Fässler lost the lead going into the first turn and it was Wendlinger who got away, until he spun and dropped down the order.

Gigawave Motorsport was the only car on intermediates, all the other cars on full wets, and towards the first round of pit stops the Aston Martin took over the lead. Unfortunately for the British squad their leading position would not last the whole race. Miro Konopka in the ARC Bratislava Saleen lost a wheel out on the track and eventually the safety car came out. This safety car period meant the lead of the Gigawave car was reduced to just a few car lengths.

At the restart one of the Moslers held up the cars behind the Gigawave Aston for a bit, but soon after the green flag had been shown the Jetalliance Aston Martin, with Ryan Sharp behind the wheel, went for it. Coming through Luffield corner he overtook the Gigawave DBR9 and right behind him it was the Vitaphone Maserati of Michael Bartels who also got ahead of the Gigawave car. As the chequered flag came out Ryan Sharp was still ahead of the rest of the field and clinched the win for the Jetalliance Racing team.

In the GT2 category the 30kg weight break did not give the Porsches any advantage at all. At the end of the race the Ferrari’s had beaten the Porsches and secured a complete Ferrari 430 podium. The AF Corse team took the win, Toni Vilander and Gianmaria Bruni beating all their opponents. Second in GT2 was the CR Scuderia Ferrari that started from pole position (Bell/Kirkaldy) with the BMS Scuderia Italia car of Paolo Ruberti and Matteo Malucelli finishing in third place. After the race the Prospeed Porsche of Richard Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard, which had finished in sixth position, was excluded for failing the ride height test. Markus Palttala and Mikael Forsten took over sixth place, followed by another two Ferrari 430s, the second BMS car and the Kessel Racing car.

The AT-Racing Corvette C5-R of Talkanitsa/Kaufmann took the Citation Cup class win, with the #104 Mosler grabbing the top spot in G2, despite being 7 laps down on the race winning Aston Martin. The Vertigo and ARC Bratislava Saleen retired from the race.

On May 18 the next round of the FIA GT Championship will take place at the Monza circuit in Italy.

For now check out our gallery with images from the Silverstone round.