FIA GT Championship

Jetalliance and AF Corse claim Oschersleben poles

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

Karl Wendlinger claimed pole position for tomorrow’s race here at Oschersleben. Team mate Alex Müller took second place, but the biggest surprise was the Escuderia ACA Argentina Ferrari 550 Maranello which took fourth place in the hands of José María López. In GT2 Gianmaria Bruni took pole position for AF Corse.

The GT1 qualifying session was delayed until 17:50 as the track was cleaned after an oil spill in the GT2 session and as it got underway all teams, except AT Racing, stayed in the pit lane. With seven minutes to go the action in GT1 finally started and the battle for pole got underway.

Wolfgang Kaufmann had the track for himself for the first half of the session but was unable to beat the top five of the GT2 cars. Christophe Bouchut was the first to set a fast lap time (1:23.878), but this position would not last long. While several cars tried to beat the time and failed it was Karl Wendlinger in his first flying lap that went quicker (1:23.748).

With half a minute to go Alex Müller took second place and secured a Jetalliance Racing front row. Bouchut’s time was enough to stay in third place but the star of the session was José María López. The young Argentine driver amazed everyone by setting a lap time just half a second from the fastest lap time and then even managed to improve it on his final lap to get within three tenths of a second from the Jetalliance cars.

In the GT2 category the Ferrari teams were on top again. Six minutes into the session Gianmaria Bruni set a lap time of 1:27.785, which was by then half a second quicker than team mate Christian Montanari. At the half way point of the session it was Davide Rigon in the number 78 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 430 who went into the gravel. Moments later Montanari spun his Ferrari coming out of the first corner. Oil flags were then showed around the track.

The remaining minutes brought no changes at the front and meant AF Corse secured the first two spots on the GT2 grid. CR Scuderia’s Tim Mullen put the number 55 Ferrari in third place, just 0.033s behind Montanari. In fourth place it was the Advanced Engineering PeCom Racing Team (Matias Russo setting a 1:28.460) and fifth was Andrew Kirkaldy in the second of the CR Scuderia Ferrari’s. Richard Westbrook qualified the Prospeed Porsche in sixth place.

UPDATE: An angry Christophe Bouchut gave his opinion during the press conference. During his qualifying run he was blocked twice by a Maserati. These two incidents meant by the time Bouchut had a clear lap his tyres had already had their performance peak and he was unable to set a faster lap. Bouchut also complained about a lack of respect by other drivers during practice and qualifying. According to Bouchut several drivers, both in GT1 and GT2, were on the racing line while on their out laps and the ambiance in FIA GT isn’t what it used to be. When asked about the late start of the GT1 cars Bouchut explained that as he wanted to go out the red light at the end of the pit lane was on, even though the AT Racing Corvette was already out…the reason for this red light is unknown.

Full result to be added later…