FIA GT 2010 Championship

[Tommi]

Grosjean splits with sportscar team
​

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86001

Romain Grosjean has left the Matech Competition team and will be replaced at the Nurburgring World GT1 round by Nicolas Prost.

The former grand prix driver joined the Swiss sportscar outfit at the start of this year after losing his place in the Renault F1 team.

Alongside team-mate Thomas Mutsch in a Ford GT, he won two of the first three World GT1 races of the year at Abu Dhabi and Brno. He also contested the Le Mans 24 Hours with the team.

But Grosjean has parted company with Matech since the Spa 24 Hours three weeks ago.

His future programme is unclear, though he returned to GP2 at Hockenheim last month with DAMS - whose regular driver Ho-Pin Tung is now recovering from the back injury he sustained in Hungary and is yet to confirm his return for Spa next weekend.

Grosjean has also raced twice for DAMS in Auto GP this year, winning at Spa in June and Magny-Cours in July.

Prost will join Neel Jani in Matech's Ford at the Nurburgring next weekend, extending their collaboration from the Le Mans Series, where they already share a Rebellion Racing LMP1 Lola.

"I'm really pleased that Nicolas is joining the team, which is now revitalised for the 2nd half of the season," said Matech team manager Martin Bartek. "We had a recent test and he was instantly on the pace with our other drivers.

"We now have one of the strongest driver line-ups in the championship, and from our points position I'm confident of successes. With our home race only a couple of days away, it's a good feeling."

 

[Ardius]

Grosjean makes too many career moves. I think he has some skills but his career choices are pretty bad at the moment. I can't fault him for jumping at the F1 opportunity and now trying to get back in F1 through DAMS but I think he would be better off as a sportscar driver.
Certainly only performing odd races in different series is not the way to go. I think he could have won the GT1 Championship this year which is better than toodling about in GP2. Staying in (or going back to) the same series is the worst thing you can do (as you only serve to damage your reputation against weaker or stronger opposition each season as drivers move up and down).

Currently I think the GP2 field is mediocre. Maldanado is not really impressive, Perez is good and the rest are just average. Some need some more seasons, its just one of those transition seasons where the previous experienced stars have gone and only average experienced drivers are dominating (like 2008 I think when Pantano won). If Grosjean comes back to this field, he's only going to drop his reputation. Especially next year when some of the newer drivers have got up to speed.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

I missed that RJN changed the team:

RJN Motorsport is very pleased to have Rob Barff join their driver line up for the next round in the European GT4 Cup at Nurburgring. Rob was a judge and driver trainer in the Nissan Playstation GT Academy finals at Silverstone in February and will join the winner of this competition Jordan Tresson in RJN’s Nissan 370Z GT4 Version NISMO race car No.2.

Alex Buncombe to share car No. 1 with Lucas Ordonez.

Bob Neville said “At the season midpoint we are delighted that Rob, with his renowned coaching abilities, can join Jordan, as this is bound to help Jordan in a season which has been quite challenging so far. Alex and Lucas have often driven together and make a very strong pairing”.

==========

From the practice this morning:

Paul Meijer set fastest time in this morning's first free practice session at the Nürburgring. The Dutch championship leader had it all together in a very wet session and was over three seconds faster than German Wolfgang Weber in another Aston Martin GT4. Gianni Giudici was not only best in super sports, but the Italian veteran was also third quickest overall in his Lotus 2Eleven.

Free practice 1
1 th #365 Corvette (Solid) van Dongen/Zumbrink 2:25.859
25 th #2 Nissan Tresson/Barff 2:32.369
#1 Nissan Buncombe/Ordonez no time

Free practice 2
1st #7 Aston Martin Meijer 2:29.332
15 th : #1 Nissan Buncombe/Ordonez 2:35.969
18 th : #2 Nissan Tresson/Barff 2:36.567

===========

Expecting quite some excitement this weekend with the instable weather in Spa and Nürnburg.

------------------------

First race seems disappointment:
Place 16 #1 Nissan Buncombe/Ordonez 2:25.382
Very bad best time compared to the others and their qualification.

#2 Nissan did not make the finish

 

[MiamiPhill]

Found some FIA GT1 stuff on Comcast cable (Bloomberg of all places) looks like qualifying at the Nurbergring, it's done now but they will have the race tomorrow at 2pm.

 

[The Outlaw]

WTF...Bloomberg? Thanks for the heads up dude...I know I never would have been aware of that in a million years otherwise

I will definitely tune in to watch despite the fact that it conflicts with the ALMS race. It's just too bad there happens to be so many quality racing events (Formula 1, Moto GP, ALMS, FIA GT1, Grand-AM) to follow this weekend

 

[Northstar]

Found some FIA GT1 stuff on Comcast cable (Bloomberg of all places) looks like qualifying at the Nurbergring, it's done now but they will have the race tomorrow at 2pm.

I found that out as well a few months ago, unfortunately I now have Directv which doesn't carry Bloomberg(or at least that I know of).

 

[Mt. Lynx]

WTF...Bloomberg? Thanks for the heads up dude...I know I never would have been aware of that in a million years otherwise

I will definitely tune in to watch despite the fact that it conflicts with the ALMS race. It's just too bad there happens to be so many quality racing events (Formula 1, Moto GP, ALMS, FIA GT1, Grand-AM) to follow this weekend

I found that out as well a few months ago, unfortunately I now have Directv which doesn't carry Bloomberg(or at least that I know of).

You always have coverage at http://www.gt1world.com/gt1tv

 

[FishforRent]

I found that out as well a few months ago, unfortunately I now have Directv which doesn't carry Bloomberg(or at least that I know of).

Channel 353 on DirectTV. It's not HD but oh well. I started doing a 'smart search' and inputted FIA to find the races. The title show the Paul Ricard race, but it's the Nurb race.

 

[Speedster502]

Bloomberg didn't appear to show any of the FIA GT1 races this weekend, but atleast you can still watch them at gt1world. I must admit, I missed both of the races this weekend but I'm going to watch them later on this week. I've been way too tied up as of recently.

 

[freshseth83]

That's funny- it came on Bloomberg for me, it was the championship race. The Aston's Won! I love the DBR9! It was on at around 10 A.M. Pacific time.

Rumor around the paddock, according to planetlemans.com was that Vitaphone racing will ditch the Maserati's next year and run a pair of Lexus LFA's! Nuts! I can't find anything more on this story except for that site. It just adds to the rumor though. Seems there might be some truth in the LFA going to GT1.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

The Aston's Won! I love the DBR9!

I was there and I must say the Young Driver Aston was putting up an impressive show in the qualifier. Even when quite a bit ahead on the rest of the field, it still went with squeaking tires through some turns.

=======================

It seems for GT4 in the second race:
Tresson/Banff did not very well, ended somewhere at the end of the pack.
Ordoñez/Buncombe did not finish the race.

 

[freshseth83]

They should let the GT1 cars go back to their limelight. Let them run as is, no restrictors or smaller rear wings or weight penalties. Let em go in there at 1100KG with 650HP and give em the wide rear wings again. That was when GT1 was at it's best. Even though they still had weight added.

 

[Mt. Lynx]

They should let the GT1 cars go back to their limelight. Let them run as is, no restrictors or smaller rear wings or weight penalties. Let em go in there at 1100KG with 650HP and give em the wide rear wings again. That was when GT1 was at it's best. Even though they still had weight added.

The problem with that is how the new cars are built. They use as much of the original chassis as GT2. The grandfathered cars basically only have the drivers compartment, and very little else. Well, the MC12 has its entire chassis, but that is made of CF...
More power shouldn´t be problem though, and I believe that is coming. I have a feeling Ratel wants GT1 to be faster then the new GTE class, wich is said to be faster than current GT2, whom currently is about as quick as GT1...

If I was ratel, I would now collect all data concerning weight, restrictors and ECU, and calculate each carbrand to make them equals on paper. That should be doable now, when they have gone halfway through the season.
That way they could ditch the successweights, and always have the cars on equal terms anyway.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

Just read in the local newspaper:

Jordan Tresson in Portugal (3e place) in GT4.

 

[Old Boone]

Live stream of the Interlagos race (only a few minutes left but the site will let you re-watch the whole race) - http://gt1world.com/gt1tv