Ridiculous start to the FIA GT1 season. Tomas Enge missed his breaking point, hitting the no41 Ford GT an spun. This resulted in a huge chain reaction which led the no37, ultra fast, pole sitting All-Inkl Lamborghini Murcielago LP 760 R-SV to slam into the Aston Martin. Game over with not one lap completed. We’ve never been fans of Enge’s since his days of ALMS.
Congrats to Maxime Martin and Frederic Makowiecki for their win. Complete race report after the jump.
Ford Marc VDS Racing’s Maxime Martin and Frederic Makowiecki claimed a hard-earned victory in today’s qualifying race, resisting heavy pressure from the No. 22 Nissan JRM to triumph in the first race of the season.
Racing together for the first time, the duo started from second and held position until the pitlane opened, when an excellent stop by the Marc VDS team allowed them to jump into the lead.
They came under severe pressure for the duration of the second half of the race, but remained composed throughout and held on to claim a maiden GT1 win. Nissan meanwhile celebrated as it occupied the next three slots, with the No. 23 JRM and No. 20 Sumo Power GT-Rs following the No. 22 JRM home.
“This is our first race together, so it’s a fantastic result,” Maxime Martin said. “The team did a very good job in the pit stops, and we are very happy with this result.”
There was drama at the start of the race as the No. 7 Aston Martin Young Driver car of Tomas Enge and Alex Muller missed its breaking point and tapped the inside of the No. 41 Ford, before spinning on the exit of turn one.
That caused a chain reaction in the field as first the No. 37 All-Inkl car – demoted five places from the pole Nicky Pastorelli and Dominik Schwager claimed in qualifying – and then the No. 47 Corvette DKR made contact with Enge’s Aston Martin, ruling all three cars out of the race.
As the field reassembled it was the No. 8 Aston Martin Young Driver of Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner which set about establishing an early lead, with the No. 41 Ford Marc DVS second and the No. 22 Nissan JRM in third.
The order remained consistent at the front until the pit stop window opened on lap 12, when disaster befell the No. 8 Aston Martin as a slow pit stop dropped them behind the Ford GT, before a problem with the left-front tyre caused them to retire completely from the race.
The No. 22 Nissan meanwhile had opted to stay out one lap longer, and the move almost paid dividends as it rejoined the track side by side with the No. 41 Ford Marc VDS. A frantic battle for position ensued over the next series of corners, with Maxime Martin eventually emerging in the lead but under severe pressure in the Ford.
That pressure remained for the duration of the race, with the gap between the lead two cars only exceeding one second on the penultimate lap.
There were similarly enthralling battles throughout the field, particularly at the start as a five way battle for fourth raged between Nissan, Corvette and Lamborghini. The No. 20 and No. 23 Nissan GT-Rs eventually came to the fore, but there was late drama as Lucas Luhr and Michael Krumm in the No. 23 dived down the inside to snatch third from their sister car of Enrique Bernoldi and Ricardo Zonta.
Clivio Piccione and Stef Dusseldorp finished fifth in the No. 9 Aston Martin Young Driver, ahead of Lamborghini All-Inkl’s Markus Winkelhock and Marc Basseng and Corvette DKR’s Mike Hezemans and Nicky Catsburg – who completed an impressive 360 spin when fighting for position in the early stages of the race.
Eighth meanwhile went to the No. 21 Nissan Sumo Power GT-R of David Brabham and Jamie Campbell-Walter, the duo fighting back from problems at their pit stop to make up two places in the final seven laps.
Qualifying Race Pos Car Class Drivers Car Time Laps Gap Avg
speed 1 41 GT1 Maxime Martin / Frederic Makowiecki Ford GT Matech 1:00:11.256 31 69,93 2 22 GT1 Peter Dumbreck / Richard Westbrook Nissan GT-R 1:00:12.732 31 1.476 70,42 3 23 GT1 Lucas Luhr / Michael Krumm Nissan GT-R 1:00:29.325 31 18.069 69,93 4 20 GT1 Enrique Bernoldi / Ricardo Zonta Nissan GT-R 1:00:32.770 31 21.514 69,61 5 3 GT1 Clivio Piccione / Stef Dusseldorp Aston Martin DB9 1:00:33.716 31 22.460 70,26 6 38 GT1 Markus Winkelhock / Marc Basseng Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-S 1:00:34.305 31 23.049 70,09 7 11 GT1 Mike Hezemans / Nicky Catsburg Corvette Z06 1:00:49.084 31 37.828 68,81 8 21 GT1 David Brabham / Jamie Campbell-Walter Nissan GT-R 1:00:54.893 31 43.637 70,75 9 4 GT1 Christian Hohenadel / Andrea Piccini Aston Martin DB9 1:00:59.831 31 48.575 70,26 10 5 GT1 Karl Wendlinger / Peter Kox Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-S 1:01:00.710 31 49.454 68,18 11 40 GT1 Marc Hennerici / Bas Leinders Ford GT Matech 1:01:07.035 31 55.779 70,26 12 10 GT1 Martin Matzke / Milos Pavlovic Ford GT Matech 1:01:19.133 31 1:07.877 69,77 13 6 GT1 Max Nilsson / Jiri Janak Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-S 1:01:20.122 31 1:08.866 67,42 14 9 GT1 Antoine Leclerc / Fabien Giroix Ford GT Matech 1:02:00.959 31 1:49.703 69,44 15 8 GT1 Stefan Mücke / Darren Turner Aston Martin DB9 30:35.811 15 29:35.445 70,42 16 7 GT1 Alex Müller / Tomas Enge Aston Martin DB9 3:02.716 1 57:08.540
- FIA GT1
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