GT1 World

Bernoldi and Negrao take home victory at Interlagos

© DPPI

The Championship Race got off to a clean start and there were no incidents in the first couple of corners. Tomas Enge pulled away on the opening lap as Peter Dumbreck had his hands full on defending his second place from the cars behind him. But soon Dumbreck was back on the bumper of the Aston Martin.

Despite the top six staying within three seconds of each other there wasn’t too much action. Reiter’s Ricard Zonta hit trouble early in the race once again and retired in the pit after just six laps. Bertolini dropped down to tenth, while strong runs from Serra and Matech Competition drivers Jani and Westbrook meant their cars climbed up the ranks.

With the pit stops approaching the gap between the top six was still three seconds and it was clear that the race was to be decided by the pit stops and the performance of the second-stint drivers.

As soon as the pit window opened race leader Tomas Enge came in, followed by Peter Dumbreck and Enrique Bernoldi. Clivio Piccione did one more lap before coming in for his mandatory stop, the Hexis AMR number 9 returned to the track right in front of Xandi Negrao, but the Brazilian soon passed the Aston Martin again. Sumo Power GT’s pit stop was less successful and the number 23 Nissan GT-R dropped from second to fifth.

When all teams had made their stops Young Driver AMR was still in the lead but now just half a second ahead of the Vitaphone Maserati of Xandi Negrao. Alex Margaritis was in third place. Further down the track Yann Clairay, Michael Bartels, Thomas Mutsch and Alex Müller were in an intense battle for ninth position. Unfortunately for Mutsch he had his hands full at defending his position from Müller – the Ford and the Maserati went down the Senna S door-to-door on several occasions. This allowed Clairay and Bartels to create a small gap to the other two cars.

On lap 28 Bartels decided he had had enough and passed Clairay. Moments after passing the Aston Martin the Triple H Team Hegersport and the Matech Competition cars passed Clairay as well. Unfortunately for Mutsch he made a small mistake and Clairay moved back ahead again. Meanwhile Stefan Mücke had closed the gap to Mutsch and now put the pressure on the Ford driver.

With twelve minutes left on the clock Negrao moved to the inside of the Young Driver AMR Aston Martin DBR9 of Tomas Enge and – after contact between the two cars – the Brazilian took the lead of the race. Negrao immediately pulled away from Enge.

Mutsch had a hard time keeping his title ambitions alive. The German tried to pass Clairay into the Senna S, but instead of gaining a position he lost another one to Stefan Mücke. Christopher Haase tried to pass the Ford as well, but had to abort his attempt when he was pushed onto the grass. One lap later the situation was almost identical and after another close fight Clairay had gone from 11th to 14th, while Haase was still all over the Ford GT. Mutsch and Haase kept fighting until the last lap but then under braking the two cars touched and Mutsch spun his Ford.

Xandi Negrao and Enrique Bernoldi secured a Brazilian victory for Vitaphone Racing Team after 38 laps, much to the delight of the Brazilian fans. The Maserati MC12 finished 2.348 seconds clear of the Young Driver AMR Aston Martin DBR9 of Turner and Enge and another 3.526 seconds clear of the Phoenix Racing Corvette of Alex Margaritis and Marc Hennerici.

Championship leaders Bertolini and Bartels finished in ninth place, while Thomas Mutsch eventually ended up in fourteenth place.