FIA GT1 Championship

Xavier Maassen secures Spa Race 1 pole position

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat

Xavier Maassen secured pole position for today’s FIA GT1 World Championship Qualifying Race in qualifying this morning on the 7.004km long Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The Mad Croc Racing driver was quickest in the third and final part of qualifying, beating two Lamborghinis and securing his first pole position on his home track.

The first part of qualifying turned out to be disastrous for Nissan. Both Sumo Power cars as well as the Swiss Racing Team Nissan nr 3 missed the cut and only Seiji Ara managed to qualify his nr 4 Swiss Racing Team Nissan for the second part of qualifying. Another shocking non-qualifier was the nr 1 Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC12 of Andrea Bertolini and Michael Bartels. Out after session 1 were the numbers 33, 41, 3, 1, 22, 23, 7 and 37. Fred Makowiecki posted the fastest session time by setting a 2:17.865.

A few minutes later the second session got underway and all teams went out again to try and get themselves into the top 8 in order to qualify for the final part of the session. Frank Kechele in the Reiter Engineering Lamborghi nr 25 was quickest in 2:18.380.
Out after the second session were the numbers 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 14, 24.

In the final part of qualifying the battle was on for pole position and it was Xavier Maassen who was the first to post a 2:18. Mike Hezemans, Bert Longin, Maxime Martin and Ricardo Zonta soon beat the Dutchman’s time though.
The first to break into the 2:17s was the All-Inkl Lamborghini of Nicky Pastorelli, but moments after Pastorelli had taken provisional pole it was Xavier Maassen again who went quicker and posted a 2:17.605.

None of the drivers still out on the track when the chequered flag came out was able to improve, resulting in a pole position for the nr 11 Mad Croc Racing Corvette C6.R. Maassen and Pastorelli completed a Dutch front row.

Xavier Maassen: “I am really delighted. It has been a difficult season for us, in five rounds I’ve had four different team mates, which is everytime a difficult thing to be in. We’re trying to make the best out of it and we’ve been knocking on the door for some time and every race we were competitive and we were doing a good job, but everytime we didn’t get seem to get the result we wanted. We had a chance for the podium in nearly every race, but we never seem to get it. So I’m really delighted, it’s like a relief now to finally get a good result and a pole position here. Especially here as the track is brilliant and it’s my home track. If you have a good car Spa is so incredibly nice! The team did an awesome job as the car was simply perfect!”