Luca Filippi and Andrea Montermini triumphed for Villorba Corse Ferrari in the second of the weekend’s two International GT Open races at Paul Ricard in France.
In the opening stint, Filippi had to carve through the field from a lowly 12th on the grid, after another rain-hit qualifying saw the S-GT cars again line up mostly behind the GTS class.
Filippi held sixth by the end of the first lap, and fourth shortly afterwards, before passing Luis Razia’s Bhai Tech McLaren to go third overall before the stops. Polesitter and race-one winner Maxime Soulet briefly lost the lead to a fast-starting Isaac Tutumulu in the Autorlando Porsche, yet it wasn’t long before the GPR Aston Martin was back in front again, looking just as unbeatable as it had during Race 1.
As Soulet pulled away and the S-GT cars made their way to the front of the field in the first stint, the battle for second in GTS went on between Tutumulu, Razia and Stefano Gattuso’s Kessel Racing Ferrari. Niccolo Schirro in the S-GT-class Autoex Porsche found himself in the middle of this scrap as he fought his way up from 19th on the grid. Things came to a head on Lap 8 when Razia and Gattuso got together in turn one, leading to swift evasive action by Schirro. He then engaged in a somewhat scrappy battle with Gattuso, eventually handing the car to co-driver Archie Hamilton in fifth place.
Soulet and co-driver Enzo Ide’s victory the previous day had earned them a 15-second pitstop handicap. It was therefore not surprising to see the S-GT class Ferrari of Alexander Talkanitsa Sr (whose co-driver Talkanitsa Jr had followed Filippi up through the field) emerge in the lead after the pit stops, with Montermini in second after taking over from Filippi.
Ide emerged in third place, but didn’t immediately look like a threat to the Ferraris, as he struggled for grip on slick tyres in drizzly conditions. He finally found Saturday’s pace in the closing 10 minutes of the race – right around the time Talkanitsa Sr succumbed to pressure from Montermini and lost the race-lead with a spin.
Ide was on his bumper before long, and a spectacular late-braking move from way back at the Mistral chicane saw the young Belgian snatch second on the final lap of the race.
Up front, Montermini was struggling with his Ferrari’s handling on a still-damp track, but even a heart-in-mouth moment when he ran wide was not enough to rob him of victory.
He finally crossed the line just eigh- tenths of a second ahead of Ide’s Aston Martin, while Talkanitsa held on for third.
Dutch former single-seater ace Renger van der Zande proved to be the real star of the second stint, however. The Seyffarth Mercedes was lying 15th overall when he took over from co-driver Miguel Toril at the stops, but would eventually finish fourth on the road and second in the GTS class behind Ide. The battle for third in that class was also a feature of the second stint, as Nicola de Marco made up for his Race 1 accident by seeing off the attentions of Kiril Ladygin and Jan Magnussen’s 458s to take the final class podium position in his Kessel Racing Ferrari.
Filippi and Montermini ended up taking a double class victory away from Paul Ricard, as the on-track winners of the S-GT class in race one, Bert Longin and Diederik Sijthoff, were hit with a 30-second penalty after Saturday’s race. In Sunday’s event, Sijthoff managed to build on a solid opening stint by Longin, rein in the chicane-cutting antics that attracted yesterday’s penalty and finally pass Duncan Cameron’s MTECH Ferrari during his stint to clinch fifth overall and third in the S-GT class at the flag.
Magnussen and Johnny Laursen finished ninth for Kessel, while the top ten was rounded out by Hamilton, who couldn’t match his co-driver Schirro’s first-stint pace in the Autoex Porsche.
Stephen Errity (@83ste)
Photographs by Fotospeedy
