NEWS
FIA GT1 2010: Spa Qualifying Race Report
Article written by: Gary Watkins- Autosport
Dutchmen Jos Menten and Xavier Maassen dominated the qualifying race for the fifth round of the FIA GT1 World Championship at Spa. Menten converted Maassen's pole into the lead of the race aboard the DKR-run Mad-Croc Chevrolet Corvette and edged away from Frank Kechele in the best of the Reiter Lamborghini Murcielagos through the opening stint. The DKR crew maintained an advantage of more than two seconds during the mandatory pitstops, giving Maassen enough of lead over Ricardo Zonta to claim a comfortable victory. Menten and Maassen said:
1st Jos Menten - Nr 11 Mad Croc Racing C6R
“At the start, I was worried that I wouldn’t see the start lights, because I’m in Xavier’s seat, so I’m a little bit higher in, so I asked my engineer to tell me when it was green. I saw the green, so that was lucky for me. Schwager made it a bit difficult, I had to fight for the first corner, but that was okay. After Eau Rouge, I looked in the display in my mirror, and I saw I had a little gap, and I was a happy in my car for a bit. At the end of the lap, my engineer called Safety Car, before the bus stop chicane, so I lifted off a bit, because I was thinking that the car would come on, but there were no flag posts or anything. I was a bit angry at myself for listening to him, but I put the throttle back on and went away. I knew I had to push for the whole 30 mins to stay in first, because I know what Frank Kechele is capable of. We had some problems with the tyres, a little bit of oversteer, but I think most people had that.”
1st Xavier Maassen - Nr 11 Mad Croc Racing C6R
“It was great. We made a good pitstop. We had an awesome car in the beginning. Struggled a bit with a bit the low tyre pressure, and I saw Ricardo coming quite close; it was a bit up and down. I needed to increase the gap, and we had the ability to do it, which was good. The car seemed to be running fine. We had a good car all through the race, except for the last couple of laps, with the understeer and oversteer, because of the high tyre degradation here. But we managed to do well and we’ve now officially qualified on pole for a championship race, which is good. We’ll still have a job to do tomorrow. We’re going to look at the data to see if we can improve a bit for tomorrow, and from there we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Third place went to the Phoenix/Carsport Chevrolet driven by Marc Hennerici and Mike Hezemans. Hennerici ran fifth to the pitstops behind Dominik Schwarger and Stefan Mucke, but contact between the All-Inkl.com Lambo and the Young Driver AMR Aston Martin and then a fast pitstop by the Phoenix squad got Mike Hezemans out in third place. Mucke and Christoffer Nygaard ended up fourth ahead of the Vitaphone-run Hegersport Maserati of Nico Verdonck and Bert Longin. Sixth place went to Schwarger and team-mate Nicky Pastorelli.
3rd Marc Hennerici - Nr 13 Phoenix Racing /Carsport Corvette C6R
“We are really happy because I’m still 3rd place in the championship, so I need the points. The other Corvette was much quicker, so we have a lot to think about, what might be wrong with the car. It was a great race, but the start was really bad for me, because the left side braked so late that I lost 2 places; I could pass Bas Leinders, but when I was behind Mücke, I could close the gap, but I lost so much downforce in the corners, I didn’t expect this massive effect in a GT car, but there was no chance of passing. This is my favourite track though.”
3rd Mike Hezeman - Nr 13 Phoenix Racing /Carsport Corvette C6R
“It was a good race, but the other Corvette was quicker. I drove there, I know their setup, which we’ll try tomorrow in warm up. We’ll see tomorrow. Apart from the problem with the car on the slow down lap, the race was fine. But I always seem to be in the wrong car.”
Championship leaders Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini non-scored in their Vitaphone Maserati after the former sustained body damage on the opening lap. Second-placed Romain Grosjean crashed the Matech Ford GT he shared with Neel Jani at Blanchimont.
UPDATE: After post race scurtineering, Mike Hezemans and Marc Hennerici were exclused from the overall race results when the nr13 C6R failed to carry enough fuel for regulation sampling.
