FIA GT Championship

FIA GT Zolder: Latest Team and Driver news

© Planetlemans – Gerlach Delissen

Only a few days before the final European round of the 2008 FIA GT Championship and the driver line-ups for the Zolder event are being finalised. Apart from the driver news there were also some rumours regarding one-off entries, but none of these rumours seems to become reality.

First of all the third Maserati MC12 that will race in Belgium this weekend. Racing under the Team Vitasystems banner the car will be used to support the two lead Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC12s in their fight for the FIA GT1 Teams Championship. “The car was tested after Brno,” Technical Director Jens Hagelauer commented. “As Zolder is very close to our home base in Germany, this is a perfect opportunity to run the car and test it in race conditions. We will see if everything goes to plan.”

The team will have two experienced drivers in the #17 car: Pedro Lamy and Matteo Bobbi. Lamy has raced in the Maserati MC12 before during the Spa 24 Hours in 2007 and is the 1998 GT2 Drivers Champion. Bobbi also drove the Maserati during the Spa 24 Hours in 2007, albeit in the other Vitaphone entry, and was the 2003 GT Drivers Champion.

Prospeed Competition will have another works driver joining the team at Zolder. Mikael Forsten is unable to compete at Zolder as he will be competing in the World Cup Jumping event in Helsinki, Finland. He will be replaced by Marc Lieb, who was part of the Prospeed line-up that took second place in GT2 at the Spa 24 Hours in August. Marc Lieb: “I am very happy to do another FIA GT race this year and with Prospeed, my teammate Markus Palttala, we should be well prepared for their home race. I like Zolder a lot but never had luck there. So it is time for a change.”

The final vacant seat in GT2, at Kessel Racing, will be taken by Marcello Zani. The Italian will join Henri Moser in the Swiss Ferrari F430 GT2. For Marcello Zani it marks the return to the series he had a full-time drive in last year. In 2007 Zani finished second at Zolder, driving the Ebimotors Porsche 997 GT3 RSR alongside Xavier Pompidou. This year he raced in the FIA GT3 Championship for Brixia Racing.

In recent weeks there were also rumours that the Reiter Engineering squad would bring two Lamborghini Murciélago R-GTs to Belgium, one for Kox/Rusinov and one for Haase/Von Thurn und Taxis. Things could not be more wrong though as the team officially confirmed they would not be competing at Zolder, nor at the Potrero de los Funes circuit in San Luis.

Another rumoured entry was the Hisaq Competition Porsche (now run by Konrad Motorsport). This entry was first expected at Nogaro but showed up at Monza for the GT Open races instead. More than likely the team will also not be racing in Belgium, opting for the final GT Open race at Barcelona in two weeks instead.