FIA GT Highlights
Discussion
If you don't want to know what happened - stop reading now!!!
I spent a very enjoyable Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the FIA GT meeting, alot of it in the GMAC pits with Walt Thurn of Corvette Magazine and Koos Pettinga of Corvette Europe, and with Ernst Woehr of Callaway Europe getting pics of all the action. Koos had blagged the organisers to use two Z06s as the pace cars, which looked and sounded superb leading the field!
The GMAC Corvette sounded awesome, a really deep bellow, and was visibly faster than everything else especially through the Maggots / Beckets complex. Shame that the Corvettes seemed to be on the receiving end from errant Ferraris and Maseratis all weekend - The brand new, never-turned-a-wheel-before Callaway Z06 GT3 of Ruffier & Peyroles was punted off in the first race by a slow F430 but recovered well from 24th to 7th. It was patched up with rivets holding the rear bodywork together and a big patch of red paint where the errant stumbling nag clouted it and in race 2 Peyroles went much better and finished 2nd - the Ford GT of Ian Khan and Thomas Mutsche won both GT3 races so a big congrats to them. The field is so varied and close though that 9 different makes of car made up the top 10 in race 1 - fantastic!
In GT1, the GMAC Corvette claimed pole with the SRT Racing Corvette second, but after Marcel Fassler effortlessly pulled a lead, after the driver change the lead Corvette was punted off by a Maserati and finished 8th. The other GMAC Corvette finished 5th with the SRT Corvette a fine 4th. Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp in the JetAlliance Aston DBRS9s finished 1st and their team mates Simonsen and Peter 3rd with one of the Maserati MC12s in 2nd. The Citation Cup for amateur drivers was won by the older Corvette C5R of Alexander Talkanitsa, salvaging some glory for the Corvettes!
Needless to say it was great to go to and from the event each day in a Z06, and there was a fine selection of Corvettes in the Supercar paddock too.
I'll post some of the 1000+ pics I took here once i have uploaded them to my machine at home.
ACW magazine will be publishing an article on the meeting and series in general in the near future, so look out for more piccies and info there. :-)
I spent a very enjoyable Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the FIA GT meeting, alot of it in the GMAC pits with Walt Thurn of Corvette Magazine and Koos Pettinga of Corvette Europe, and with Ernst Woehr of Callaway Europe getting pics of all the action. Koos had blagged the organisers to use two Z06s as the pace cars, which looked and sounded superb leading the field!
The GMAC Corvette sounded awesome, a really deep bellow, and was visibly faster than everything else especially through the Maggots / Beckets complex. Shame that the Corvettes seemed to be on the receiving end from errant Ferraris and Maseratis all weekend - The brand new, never-turned-a-wheel-before Callaway Z06 GT3 of Ruffier & Peyroles was punted off in the first race by a slow F430 but recovered well from 24th to 7th. It was patched up with rivets holding the rear bodywork together and a big patch of red paint where the errant stumbling nag clouted it and in race 2 Peyroles went much better and finished 2nd - the Ford GT of Ian Khan and Thomas Mutsche won both GT3 races so a big congrats to them. The field is so varied and close though that 9 different makes of car made up the top 10 in race 1 - fantastic!
In GT1, the GMAC Corvette claimed pole with the SRT Racing Corvette second, but after Marcel Fassler effortlessly pulled a lead, after the driver change the lead Corvette was punted off by a Maserati and finished 8th. The other GMAC Corvette finished 5th with the SRT Corvette a fine 4th. Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp in the JetAlliance Aston DBRS9s finished 1st and their team mates Simonsen and Peter 3rd with one of the Maserati MC12s in 2nd. The Citation Cup for amateur drivers was won by the older Corvette C5R of Alexander Talkanitsa, salvaging some glory for the Corvettes!
Needless to say it was great to go to and from the event each day in a Z06, and there was a fine selection of Corvettes in the Supercar paddock too.
I'll post some of the 1000+ pics I took here once i have uploaded them to my machine at home.
ACW magazine will be publishing an article on the meeting and series in general in the near future, so look out for more piccies and info there. :-)
Edited by JenkinsComp on Tuesday 22 April 16:43
I too met Walt and Koos, we were talking down the other end of the pit lane at the start of the second GT3 race when the big shunt happened and the French Aston got totalled.
I spent a lot of the weekend in the SRT garage and was watching the monitors with them waiting to see if the Gigawave Aston had gone to slicks at the right time (it hadn't it should have waited about 4 more laps). But, the #10 Gigawave Aston got lucky as the safety car for the 3 wheel Saleen came at just the right time as it still had to make a second stop.
Deletraz got punted off at the restart by the Maser but he was never going to beat the SRT car as he isn't a fast enough driver. Fassler and Hezemans should have been the driver combo for one car with Deletraz / Gollin in the other one.
Fantastic race and some of my pics are on the GT Racing forum.
Loved the Z06 in Jetstream Blue.
I spent a lot of the weekend in the SRT garage and was watching the monitors with them waiting to see if the Gigawave Aston had gone to slicks at the right time (it hadn't it should have waited about 4 more laps). But, the #10 Gigawave Aston got lucky as the safety car for the 3 wheel Saleen came at just the right time as it still had to make a second stop.
Deletraz got punted off at the restart by the Maser but he was never going to beat the SRT car as he isn't a fast enough driver. Fassler and Hezemans should have been the driver combo for one car with Deletraz / Gollin in the other one.
Fantastic race and some of my pics are on the GT Racing forum.
Loved the Z06 in Jetstream Blue.
Edited by vetteheadracer on Tuesday 22 April 23:04
http://www.corvettemotorsport.com/index.htm
Follow the exploits of the FIA GT racing Corvettes via this website, that Koos runs.
Follow the exploits of the FIA GT racing Corvettes via this website, that Koos runs.
Godzilla said:
JenkinsComp said:
Koos sourced both the yellow Lead car and the JSB Safety car with less than a week before the race. I am not sure if he brought them in from Europe or from UK.
The JSB one is UK as you can see the road tax disc...Edited by JenkinsComp on Wednesday 23 April 16:51
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