Miguel Ramos and Nicky Pastorelli took the first of the weekend’s International GT Open race wins at Portimao, Portugal on Saturday.
The V8 Racing Corvette pair’s main rivals, Luca Filippi and Andrea Montermini, were unable to do enough to overcome the 30-second pit handicap from their Paul Ricard success, and brought the Villorba Corse Ferrari 458 home second overall.
An aborted start meant the first lap of the race was run under full-course yellows. When the lights finally went green second time past the pits, polesitter Filippi found himself swallowed up by Alexander Talkanitsa Jr in the AT Racing Ferrari and GTS-class poleman Cesar Campanico’s Team Novadriver Audi R8. Filippi asserted himself through the first corner, however, and had snatched the lead from Talkanitsa Jr by the end of lap one.
But the field was soon neutralised again when Marco Seefried’s Rinaldi Racing Porsche speared into the Kessel Racing Ferrari of Francesco Castellaci at the hairpin, bringing out the safety car as marshals cleared the debris. The race went green after about 10 minutes, and up front Filippi immediately set about establishing as big a gap as possible, knowing that fourth-place Ramos, his chief rival for the win, was carrying no pit handicap. Ramos himself was perhaps getting racier than he needed to be, taking his Corvette past Campanico for third overall on lap eight.
That seemed to rattle the Audi driver, who was almost immediately challenged for the GTS class lead by Alessandro Per Guidi in the Estamotorsports Ferrari.
Rafael Unzurrunzaga was then forced to park his malfunctioning Mosler in an awkward position, prompting a second safety-car period and undoing Filippi’s nine-second lead. The restart saw Campanico, Per Guidi and Kessel’s Daniel Zampieri running nose-to-tail in the top three GTS positions, with a battling Dimitris Deverikos closing on them fast in the Autorlando Porsche.
Filippi once again pulled away at the front with ease, but there was a heart-stopping moment for Diederik Sijthoff, solo-driving one of the V8 Racing Corvettes this weekend, when he made contact with Matteo Beretta’s GTS-class Ferrari through turn one. The Dutchman continued, but it was game over for Beretta and his young British co-driver Michael Lyons.
Ramos was the first of the leaders to pit, handing over to fellow GT1 World Championship veteran Pastorelli for the second stint. Elsewhere, Per Guidi had snuck past Campanico for the GTS lead unseen by the cameras, while Isaac Tutumlu took over the Autorlando Porsche from Deverikos and immediately began hassling Chris van der Drift’s McLaren. This battle held up Filippi and in turn allowed Pastorelli to punch in some fast clean laps, giving him a cushion he would not lose until the end of the race.
Filippi finally handed over to co-driver Montermini on lap 20, and second-placed Talkanitsa Jr followed suit, handing his Ferrari over to his father Talkanitsa Sr. Montermini emerged in third place, just a second behind the Talkanitsa Ferrari, but 22 seconds adrift of the leader. Grabbing second place presented little challenge for the Italian, but Pastorelli would never look troubled in the lead as the second stint wound down.
In GTS, Aleksej Basov took over the Estamotorsports Ferrari, and the class lead, from Per Guidi at the stops. Second-place Campanico handed his Audi to Carlos Vieira, while Johnny Laursen took over the Kessel Ferrari from Zampieri. The Dane put in an undistinguished performance, however – first losing third in class to Tutumlu, then spinning out altogether under braking.
Further down the field, Jan Seyffarth was the man on the move in the Seyffarth Motorsport Mercedes, passing Alvaro Barba and van der Drift in quick succession as the clock wound down, then finally overcoming Tutumlu with just three minutes to go to grab the GTS podium. The class lead changed before the chequered flag fell, too – Vieira caught and overtook Basov in the final 10 minutes of running.
Stephen Errity (@83ste)
Images © FOTOSPEEDY
