FIA GT Championship

Jetalliance and AF Corse score double wins at Oschersleben

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

An exciting race under a cloudy sky saw the Jetalliance Racing team take one-two victory at Oschersleben this afternoon. Despite attempts from other teams and a messy safety car period the Austrian team repeated its qualifying performance and put its two cars on top of the podium. In GT2 AF Corse also secured a 1-2 finish.

While things went wrong at the start in 2007 this year everything went well. Jetalliance Racing maintained its leading position, although Karl Wendlinger was passed by team mate Alex Müller and SRT’s Christope Bouchut in the opening lap. At the end of the first lap Miguel Ramos came into the pit for Vitaphone’s first pit stop. The AT Racing Corvette C5-R suffered a right rear suspension problem and went into its box, next to the Gigawave car that had been parked there since the warm-up.

José María López meanwhile took control in fifth place, keeping the two Phoenix Corvettes behind him. The pressure from the two C6.R drivers increased and López started to make some mistakes. Going into the first corner the Ferrari braked hard and smoke billowed from the tyres. Only a few laps later the Ferrari 550 hit the curbstones on the right side of the track and López went wide, touching the barriers. The Argentine driver was however able to return to the track and made his pit stop immediately afterwards where he handed the car over to Martin Basso.

After all the teams had done their first pit stops the number 33 Jetalliance Racing Aston Martin DBR9 was back in the lead with the number 2 Vitaphone Racing Maserati in second place, their early pit stop gamble looked to have worked perfectly, and the second Jetalliance Aston Martin. But just before the one hour mark it was Lichtner-Hoyer spin dropping him down the order.

As the clock showed 14:15 the Ryan Sharp was leading, with Negrao some 15 seconds behind. In third and fourth place were the Phoenix Carsport Corvettes. In GT2 the AF Corse Ferrari 430 of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander was still leading, but it was now followed by the CR Scuderia Ferrari of Andrew Kirkaldy and the number 77 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 430.

With just over fifty minutes to go Negrao came onto pit road again and handed the car back over to Miguel Ramos. As a result the Corvettes went to second and third place, with Hezemans lapping just a bit quicker than Ryan Sharp. Behind Hezemans the fight for third place got underway as Bertolini and Deletraz came on to the finish straight side by side. Bertolini made an attempt but Deletraz managed to stay ahead as they went into turn one. Taking advantage of the fight was Lichtner-Hoyer who quickly closed the gap to his two opponents. One lap later Bertolini tried again and while going into turn one the Corvette and Maserati hit each other. The result was positive for Bertolini however as he took over third place.

At the exact same moment a great battle was going on in GT2. Andrew Kirkaldy, 22 seconds behind GT2 leader Toni Vilander, had the Ferrari of Thomas Biagi and the Porsche of Emmanuel Collard behind him. The three cars were within one second of each other and it was all about second place in the race. Coming out of the first turn Collard used the slipstream of Bertolini’s Maserati to get by Biagi. Collard only nearly missed the Italian’s Ferrari but was where he wanted to be, ahead of him. In his next attempt to overtake Kirkaldy Collard missed his braking point and went straight, briefly getting airborne as the Porsche hit the gravel trap.

With just over thirty-five minutes to go the final round of pit stops got underway and the Phoenix Carsport team was the first to get their cars in. Shortly afterwards the rest of the teams started to come in. Thirty-minutes before the end of the race the safety car was put on standby as a large chunk of bodywork was on the track at turn 11 and moments later Bertolini saw the flashing lighs of the Corvette Z06 in front of him. As the cars came on to the pit straight again Bertolini came into the pit lane for Vitaphone’s final stop and he was joined by the other teams that had not yet made their second stop. The Escuderia ACA Argentina was pushed into its box with just under 25 minutes to go.

The lights on the safety car went out with 20 minutes to go and the three GT2 cars that were immediately behind the safety car (!) held up the GT1 cars. As the green flag was waved the GT1 cars did all they could but they were surrounded by several GT2 cars and things became very busy. The Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari was the first victim after it was spun around by one of the Corvettes. At the same moment the race director handed the PK Carsport Saleen a stop and go penalty.

Müller got ahead of Hezemans and took back second place, while further down the field several Ferrari 430 GT2s got together in a fight. The Kessel Racing, #51 AF Corse, Advanced Engineering PeCom Racing Team and #56 CR Scuderia were on each others tail and the Ferrari train continued with Montanari getting uncomfortable not being able to catch Bruni and being stuck behind the Kessel Racing car.

Mike Hezemans spoilt his chances when he spun at turn 1 with just 10 minutes to go. Despite getting back on track he was passed by several cars and dropped back to seventh place. With Christophe Bouchut having to come in to do a stop and go penalty for speeding in the pitlane that would soon be sixth place. Tim Mullen was also given a stop and go penalty.

Michael Bartels, trying to put pressure on the Phoenix Corvette in front of him, made a mistake and hit the curbstones on the inside and then the dust. As a result the Maserati was sent into a spin and rather than climbing up in the standings Bartels lost a few places. He crossed the line in fifth place with Hezemans just 3.7 seconds behind, as Bouchut went into the pit for his stop and go.

With only a few minutes ago the gaps in the two classes were rather small. Müller was only 1,5 seconds behind Wendlinger while in GT2 Montanari and Bell were closing the gap to Bruni .Montanari was 1 second behind Bruni with Bell another second behind him. The Jetalliance team seemed to prepare for a photo finish as Müller closed the gap, but as Wendlinger took the chequered flag Müller was 1.5 second behind again. Twenty-seven seconds after Wendlinger had passed the line it was Marcel Fässler who took third place for Phoenix Carsport.

AF Corse did make it a photo finish as Bruni took the GT2 class win with team mate Montanari only two tenths behind. In third it was Rob Bell, just eight tenths behind the winner.

Full results to follow later…