GT Racing - GT1, GT3, Blancpain Endurance Series & National GT SeriesSports Cars

[Speedster502]

Great work! 👍 Really enjoyed the read.

Anyway, after a eventful Qualifying Race here are the official results.

Qualifying Race Results

1 - Marc Basseng/Markus Winkelhock - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 38
2 - Mike Hezemans/Nicky Catsburg - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 11
3 - Alex Müller/Tomas Enge - Aston Martin DBR9 - 7
4 - Karl Wendlinger/Peter Kox - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 5
5 - Maxime Martin/Frederic Makowiecki - Ford GT Matech - 41
6 - Clivio Piccione/Stef Dusseldorp - Aston Martin DBR9 - 3
7 - Lucas Luhr/Michael Krumm - Nissan GT-R - 23
8 - Max Nilsson/Jiri Janak - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 6
9 - Michael Rossi/Jaime Camara - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 47
10 - Christian Hohenadel/Andrea Piccini - Aston Martin DBR9 - 4 *
11 - Jamie Campbell-Walter/David Brabham - Nissan GT-R - 21 *
12 - Ricardo Zonta/Enrique Bernoldi - Nissan GT-R - 20 *
13 - Milos Pavlovic/Martin Matzke - Ford GT Matech - 10 *
14 - Mathias Beche/Vanina Ickx - Ford GT Matech - 9 *
15 - Darren Turner/Stefan Mücke - Aston Martin DBR9 - 8 *
16 - Peter Dumbreck/Richard Westbrook - Nissan GT-R - 22 *
17 - Dominik Schwager/Nicky Pastorelli - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 37 *

* = Retired

Weather - Sunny
Track Conditions - Dry

There were a lot of retirements in this race due to contact, the first corner incident took out the majority of cars, and caused the majority of probelms throughout the race (was probably the reason that DT's suspension went), a few other incidents meant that cars were taken out, such as both of the Belgian Racing Ford GT's which took each other out at the Turn 9 Chicane. Finally the #4 DBR9 which was leading the race up till the 4 minute remaining mark until the #38 car was tapped in a racing incident causing the rear suspension of the car to collapse.

Was a interesting race none the less, very good to see the Exim China Bank Corvette running so highly in the field for a relatively new team. Will be good to see what comes of them in the Championship Race. 👍

 

[Clark]

Championship race isn't live in 30mins on ESPN HD so it looks like it's back to watching on Bloomberg.

 

[Speedster502]

Championship race isn't live in 30mins on ESPN HD so it looks like it's back to watching on Bloomberg.

Yeah, apologies was going to post this up the other day but forgot to do so.

Zolder TV Schedule

Anyway, roughly 40 minutes till the Championship Race begins. Bloomberg will be showing highlights until about 13:30GMT then will begin the pre-race interviews and such.

Should be a good race, I've grown to like Zolder over the weekend, has a typical Belgium track feel and seems to really pound the cars, especially the brakes. 👍

Link to Online Stream via GT1World.com gt1world.com/gt1tv

 

[Clark]

I've grown to accept Zolder, I've never really liked it with all the series that have raced there, mainly because of the multitude of chicanes that have been there since it's creation.

 

[Speedster502]

It's not really that many chicanes if you think about it, it's only two slow chicanes. Anyway, highlights have now finished and pre-race coverage is about to begin race itself should start at 13:45GMT.

I'm going to back the #22 JRM Group Nissan with Westbrook and Dumbreck, I'd like them to do well but I have the feeling the weight ballast from the 2nd place in the previous round could hamper that. I'd just like to see a good result from them!

 

[Clark]

I'm just hoping either of the Fischer cars can get a good results, especially DT and Mucke.

I wish Watty would stop using is made up word 'frangability', it's fragility. Unless I'm just mishearing him.

 

[Speedster502]

I'm pretty sure he just likes to make up new words in the races.

Complete disaster for Sumo Power, not entirely sure how it happened either. One thing that I noticed was that Zonta didn't seem to stop accelerating into his team mate. I guess we'll find out what happened soon enough.

EDIT: Wasn't Zonta? Unsure of what happened.

 

[Clark]

This season continues to be plagued by first corner/race start incidents.

 

[Speedster502]

It does, the Championship Race of Abu Dhabi wasn't too bad and there was a lack of contact but both of these races at Zolder have had a lot of body contact, almost rivalling the BTCC.

 

[Clark]

Richard Westbrook has driven for so many teams in the past few years I'm surprised he doesn't turn up to race weekends in the wrong suit.

I wish Ben and John were more clued up, Catsburg didn't have to adapt to RWD for the GT1 as he drove in the Megane Trophy which a mid-engined V6 RWD Silhouette cars.


What happened in the end? I fell asleep with 10 mins to go.

 

[Submerged]

Its taking a while for the marshalls to get the Ford GT1 in the flatbed truck....:-(

 

[Clark]

It's not a GT40. It's a GT, or more specifically a Ford GT1.

 

[Speedster502]

Yeah, car seems to be off the track now.

What's peoples thoughts on the Sumo Power start incident? I see it as being Zonta's fault as he appears to have hit the 'Vette originally then the Vette becomes unsettled causing it to hit the rear 3/4 panel of Zonta's car. So, as far as I'm aware it's Zonta's fault.

 

[Clark]

I think he was just trying to rush too much and turned himself across the front of the C6.R.
----

DT/Mucke gained alot of ground there.

 

[Speedster502]

Quite a busy race, not as memorable as the Abu Dhabi race in my opinion but I feel that was due to the sheer amount of cars that were taken out at the beginning half of the race. Anyway, here's the full results of the Championship Race at Zolder.

Results

1 - Marc Basseng/Markus Winkelhock - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 38
2 - Christian Hohenadel/Andrea Piccini - Aston Martin DBR9 - 4
3 - Alex Müller/Tomas Enge - Aston Martin DBR9 - 7
4 - Karl Wendlinger/Peter Kox - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 5
5 - Mike Hezemans/Nicky Catsburg - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 11
6 - Clivio Piccione/Stef Dusseldorp - Aston Martin DBR9 - 3
7 - Darren Turner/Stefan Mücke - Aston Martin DBR9 - 8
8 - Maxime Martin/Frederic Makowiecki - Ford GT Matech - 41
9 - Lucas Luhr/Michael Krumm - Nissan GT-R - 23
10 - Marc Hennerici/Bas Leinders - Ford GT Matech - 40
11 - Milos Pavlovic/Martin Matzke - Ford GT Matech - 10
12 - Peter Dumbreck/Richard Westbrook - Nissan GT-R - 22 *
13 - Mathias Beche/Vanina Ickx - Ford GT Matech - 9 *
14 - Michael Rossi/Jamie Camara - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 47 *
15 - Jamie Campbell-Walter/David Brabham - Nissan GT-R - 21 *
16 - Ricardo Zonta/Enrique Bernoldi - Nissan GT-R - 20 *
17 - Dominik Schwager/Nicky Pastorelli - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 37 *
18 - Jiri Janak/Max Nilsson - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 6 - DNS

* = Retired

Weather: Sunny
Track Conditions: Dry

Notes:

#20, #16 & #47 were involved in a start line incident causing all three cars to sustain damage.

#37 & #6 had mechanical trouble, particularly #6 which had a oil pump probelm and did not start the Championship Race.

#22 & #9 were involved in a spin causing the #22 car to be helplessly collected by the oncoming #9 car. Causing substantial damage to both.

Current Championship Standings

Team Standings

1 - Hexis AMR (FRA) - 69 Points
2 - All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport (DEU) - 50 Points
3 - Young Driver AMR (DEU) - 47 Points
4 - JR Motorsports (GBR) - 33 Points
5 - Marc VDS Racing Team (BEL) - 23 Points
6 - Swiss Racing Team (CHE) - 22 Points
7 - Sumo Power GT (GBR) - 5 Points
8 - Belgian Racing (BEL) - 1 Point

Driver Standings

1 - Marc Basseng/Markus Winkelhock (DEU/DEU) - 49 Points
2 - Stef Dusseldorp/Clivio Piccione (NLD/MCO) - 36 Points
3 - Andrea Piccini/Christian Hohenadel (ITA/DEU) - 30 Points
4 - Tomas Enge/Alex Müller (CZE/DEU) - 27 Points
5 - Peter Dumbreck/Richard Westbrook (GBR/GBR) - 24 Points
6 - Karl Wendlinger/Peter Kox (AUT/NLD) - 21 Points
7 - Maxime Martin/Frederic Makowiecki (BEL/FRA) - 18 Points
8 - Mike Hezemans/Nicky Catsburg (NLD/NLD) - 17 Points
9 - Darren Turner/Stefan Mücke (GBR/DEU) - 16 Points
10 - Lucas Luhr/Michael Krumm (DEU/DEU) - 6 Points
11 - Ricardo Zonta/Enrique Bernoldi (BRA/BRA) - 3 Points
12 - David Brabham/Jamie Campbell-Walter (AUS/GBR) - 2 Points
13 - Marc Hennerici/Bas Leinders (DEU/BEL) - 1 Point

The next round is at Algarve in about 3 weeks time on the 8th of May. This will also serve as the first round of the GT3 European Championship which this thread will also be following. I will post various news articles regarding both championships in the build up to the event. 👍

 

[Tired Tyres]

The blancpain 3 hour endurance race at Monza is live on the GT1 website from 1:45 PM CET today for anyone interested.

http://gt1world.com/news/article/blancpain-endurance-series-live-on-gt1tv

Edit. Make that now. Here. http://www.blancpain-endurance-series.com/

 

[Jack14]

Hi Speedster502,
I'm going to the Algarve for the FIA GT1/GT3 championship round and wondered if you knew of any other support races at the meeting?

 

[Clark]

I'll talk about the British GT here aswell as it's an SRO-aligned event.

Anybody going to the opening round this bank holiday Monday? I'll be heading down and I was wondering if anybody else is. My local BTCC driver Andy Jordan is driving aswell 👍

 

[Speedster502]

Hi Speedster502,
I'm going to the Algarve for the FIA GT1/GT3 championship round and wondered if you knew of any other support races at the meeting?

Sorry not sure, the race timetable hasn't even been published at this point in time.

Anyway, this weekend sees FIA GT3 European Championship kicking off (which is part of the FIA GT and was planned to be discussed in this thread from the very beginning), although there's been a lack of news recently some new stuff is starting to appear before the weekend.

2011 marks the sixth year of the FIA GT3 European Championship which has continued to attract teams and drivers from across the world resulting in large grids and action packed racing. The 2011 season gets underway here in Portugal with two 60-minute races on the 4.7km circuit on the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve.

The FIA GT3 European Championship is for the latest generation of sportscar; with few modifications allowed from the road-going models, their performance is balanced using the techniques developed and proven in FIA GT and its successor the FIA GT1 World Championship. Each model should be represented by a minimum of 2 cars and a maximum of 6 cars, entered by two car teams.

Last year, in the penultimate round of the 2010 season, a titanic battle ensued in Portugal between the Callaway Competition Corvette of Daniel Keilwitz and Christian Hohenadel and the Prospeed Competition Porsche of Marco Holzer and Paul Van Splunteren, with the Porsche finishing ahead of the Corvette in the first race only for the roles to be reversed in the second. As a result Hohenadel and Keilwitz secured the 2010 FIA GT3 European Drivers Championship, while a good result at the final races for Holzer and Van Splunteren in Zolder secured the Team Championship for Prospeed.

Eight manufacturers will be represented on the grid in 2011, including the new Mercedes-Benz SLS and Ferrari 458, with cars from Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Ford, Lamborghini and Porsche.

For 2011 the Prospeed Competition Porsche 911 GT3 R returns with 2011 GT3 Vice Champion Paul van Splunteren returning, partnered by Belgian driver Maxime Soulet in the car carrying, as reigning Team Champions, the all important ‘number 1’ on the door panels. Prospeed will be running a second car in Portugal, the only team to be racing the race winning Porsche.

Race winner Mike Parisy will return in 2011 with French outfit Graff Racing, but will swap the Corvette Z06R for the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3. In total six of the new cars are entered for the season with a second entry from Graff Racing alongside a pair of cars for Gravity Charouz Racing from the Czech Republic and German team Heico Motorsport.

United Autosports return with their pair of Audi R8 LMS, with Zak Brown and Matt Bell securing their first FIA GT3 podium in Portugal last season. The line up has one change from last year with Mark Patterson being joined by GT4 European Cup Champion Joe Osborne in the nr22 Audi. Sainteloc Racing also return for another season with the Audi R8 and Belgian Audi Club have also entered a pair of cars, one for the Belgian pairing of Enzo Ide and Greg Franchi.

Two teams will run the new Ferrari 458 Italia, including former FIA GT2 Champions AF Corse. The Italian team will run two cars, one for Italian pairing, former British and Italian F3 racer Francesco Castellacci and Federico Leo and British GT front runners Dan Brown and Glynn Geddie. The British MTECH team is the second outfit to run the new Ferrari, with Ireland’s Matt Griffin and Britain’s Duncan Cameron in the nr20 car.

LMP Motorsport will be the only team to run the championship winning Aston Martin DBRS9, with the French team boasting three former GT3 race winners – Dimitri Enjalbert, Gael Lesoudier and Maxime Martin, who is also a GT1 World Championship race winner.

The Need for Speed Schubert Motorsport team returns for a second season with the race winning BMW Z4 GT3, with an almost unchanged driver line up. Claudia Huertgen and Csaba Walter made GT3 history last year by becoming the first car to win with Dunlop tyres at Jarama in Spain, with Huertgen also becoming the first female driver to win an FIA GT3 race. The second car features race winner Edward Sandstroem, who will be joined by Saudi Arabian driver Abdulaziz Al Faisal. The second BMW team is the Dutch Faster Racing by DB Motorsport team, who will feature an all Dutch driver line up including GT1 driver Nicky Catsburg.

German team Fischer Racing return with their race winning Ford GT, with Denmark’s Christoffer Nygaard and Finland’s Mikko Eskelinen looking to build on the strong performances they had together in 2010. Fellow German team Reiter Engineering will run a pair of Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 with reigning ADAC GT Masters Champion and FIA GT3 race winner Albert von Thurn und Taxis being joined by Austrian driver Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof in 2011.

Points will be awarded to the top 10 drivers in each race with 25 points for the winner down to 1 point for 10th, the same as the FIA GT1 World Championship. In a change for 2011 success ballast, which has been a feature of the FIA GT3 European Championship since 2009, has been replaced with Compensation Times. Instead of the top three cars and drivers being awarded +20kg, +15kg and +10kg in each race, they will receive a time of +15 seconds for 1st place, +10 seconds for second place and +5 seconds for 3rd, which will be added to the minimum pit stop duration set for the following race in the Championship.

There will be live television coverage of every round of the FIA GT3 European Championship in many parts of the world, with a full rundown of the TV channels on the official championship website, www.gt3europe.com, where the races will also be streamed live and the latest championship news, results and other information will be available immediately after each race.

Source

Should be a action packed weekend for sports car racing fans, Spa LMS & ILMC, FIA GT1 and FIA GT3 (also Britcar is on too if your into that). Looks to be awesome!

 

[Speedster502]

Apologies for the complete lack of updates, currently on holiday and don't have the chance to watch the races. Everything will be back to normal when I get back and I'll update the thread accordingly. Still, feel free to comment on the races as they happen here. 👍

 

[Smokey Nismo]

Here's to Nissan doing the clean sweep and win the Championship Race! Race 2 starts in 60 minutes time.

 

[Speedster502]

Just got this done in time for the Championship Race (which starts very shortly) and coverage starts now on both Bloomberg and GT1World.

Qualifying Race Results

1 - Richard Westbrook/Peter Dumbreck - Nissan GT-R - 34
2 - Lucas Luhr/Michael Krumm - Nissan GT-R - 23
3 - Jamie Campbell-Walter/David Brabham - Nissan GT-R - 21
4 - Stefan Mucke/Darren Turner - Aston Martin DBR9 - 8
5 - Nicky Pastorelli/Dominik Schwager - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 37
6 - Yann Clairay/Maxime Martin - Ford GT Matech - 41
7 - Markus Winkelhock/Marc Basseng - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 38
8 - Enrique Bernoldi/Ricardo Zonta - Nissan GT-R - 20
9 - Mike Hezemans/Nicky Catsburg - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 11
10 - Karl Wendlinger/Peter Kox - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 5
11 - Christian Hohenadel/Andrea Piccini - Aston Martin DBR9 - 4
12 - Max Nilsson/Jiri Janak - Lamborghini Murcielago 670 R-SV - 6
13 - Clivio Piccione/Stef Dusseldorp - Aston Martin DBR9 - 3
14 - Christopher Nygaard/Vanina Ickx - Ford GT Matech - 9
15 - Matteo Bobbi/Michael Rossi - Chevrolet Corvette C6.R - 47
16 - Martin Matzke/Antoine Leclerc - Ford GT Matech - 10
17 - Marc Hennerici/Bas Leinders - Ford GT Matech - 40
18 - Tomas Enge/Alex Muller - Aston Martin DBR9 - 7

Weather - Sunny with Clouds
Track Conditions - Dry

Definitely vouching for Dumbreck/Westbrook for the win. Definitely some well deserved points for them. I will sort out the GT3 results later on, but both races have already taken place.

 

[Submerged]

anyone have any suggestions on whether the race should be interesting? Or tactical?

 

[Speedster502]

I imagine tactics will play a role in the race, especially in the pits. Should be interesting either way, some of the best racing I've seen this year has taken place in this championship.

EDIT: Formation lap now under way.

 

[Submerged]

Ah, cheers. I am currently watching it. I'm having to use it for the action, but I am sure something will eventually happen with the pits and fast laps at some points. The track is quite interesting with all the blind crests and up and down nature!

 

[MitchZ06]

The stream keeps stopping for me making me have to reload it. It can get stuffed I'll watch the race on TV tomorrow.

 

[Submerged]

the stream is working FLAWLESSLY for me....amazingly so. I am surprised about the quality though. Considering I have many webpages open and doing a webcam conversation with a friend in China too....!

 

[MitchZ06]

Usually works flawlessly for me but not tonight it seems.

 

[Speedster502]

The stream is perfect quality for me too. Again, similar situation to Submerged, I have various pages open including the live timing screen etc.

Feel sorry for Westbrook, that massive lead seems to be diminishing quickly due to a overheating gearbox. Hopefully it'll hold for the next 20 minutes!

 

[Tired Tyres]

I have excellent streaming. Perhaps you can try watching directly on the Daileymotion website?