Montermini and Filippi defeat the Corvettes.
Andrea Montermini and Luca Filippi scored their second overall race win of the 2013 GT Open season at the Nurburgring on Saturday, fending off the challenge of both V8 Racing Corvettes to make it an all-Super GT podium for race one at the Eiffel circuit after a long timetable delay this morning due to very heavy fog.
Montermini started the Villorba Corse Ferrari 458 from pole position, and although he was initially challenged for the lead by Miguel Ramos’ V8 Racing Corvette, the Portuguese driver soon had to concentrate on fending off a fast-starting Chris van der Drift’s Bhai Tech McLaren. The Kiwi held the lead briefly on the first lap, but Montermini attacked into the last corner and definitively retook first place at the beginning of lap two.
Niccolo Schirro took an early bath after putting the Drivex Porsche in the barriers at the final corner on lap two, while van der Drift soon had to give best to the quicker Super GT-class cars, losing second to Ramos and then third to Diederik Sijthoff in the other Corvette. He then came under pressure from fifth-place Marco Seefried in the Rinaldi Porsche, who hassled the McLaren for most of the first stint, but couldn’t get past.
Rafael Suzuki was circulating in a lonely sixth at the wheel of the second Bhai Tech McLaren, but behind him it was action all the way in the lower reaches of the top 10. Michael Lyons initially held seventh in his AF Corse Ferrari, just ahead of an aggressively pursuing Roman Mavlanov in the Russian Bears 458. An increasingly robust scrap gave Isaac Tutumlu in the Autorlando Porsche the opportunity to pass both drivers, but it was Lorenzo Bontempelli (Kessel Ferrari) who made the most of the confusion, eventually emerging in eighth behind Mavlanov – Lyons and Tutmulu having been shuffled down to ninth and 10th as they fought.
Behind all this, Duncan Cameron kept a watching brief in 11th, but was canny enough not to try anything silly, and so handed his AF Corse Ferrari over to Matt Griffin in one piece at the stops. Bontempelli would make up another place before pitting, while the Corvettes also swapped places, Sijthoff moving ahead of Ramos. The latter made the first scheduled pit stop of the race once the window opened, handing over to Nicky Pastorelli. Montermini, van der Drift and Seefried made their driver changes later in the window.
When the order shook out after the stops, Sijthoff’s co-driver Bert Longin was leading, from Filippi in second and Seefried’s co-driver Vadim Kogay in third. The latter quickly tumbled down the order (and would later be taken out at the chicane by Dimitris Deverikos), but Filippi was immediately on a charge, taking two seconds a lap out of Longin’s lead. In the end, the Belgian veteran’s decent defensive driving proved insufficient.
“That was not so easy,” Longin commented after the race. “I was struggling with quite a lot of understeer so I couldn’t really defend – I preferred to go for a safe second place.” Filippi’s team-mate Montermini told us the Ferrari duo had no such problems on their way to overall and class victory. “The car was very good and the team did a fantastic job,” he said. “We could run as we wanted – on the limit all the way through the race.”
Pastorelli emerged behind the two Bhai Tech McLarens due to his longer pit handicap, but the clearly faster Super GT-class Corvette dispatched the more modern GT3 machinery relatively easily, and the Dutchman secured the final overall podium place. Bhai Tech were delighted with their 1-2 finish in the GTS class, however – a mark of the progress the former single-seater team has made since round one at Paul Ricard.
“We felt we were still testing in practice and qualifying, really,” a relieved van der Drift told us after his co-driver Luis Razia brought the car home fourth overall. “The cold weather and the track itself both suit the McLaren, and we’re starting to get our head around setups and how to manage the tyres, too.” Suzuki and Giorgio Pantano in the other MP4-12C had a quiet but effective race to finish up fifth after 50 minutes.
The other standout performance in the second stint came from Jeroen Bleekemolen. The Nurburgring 24 Hours victor took over the Autorlando Porsche from gentleman co-driver Emilio di Guida in 12th place, and quickly set about demonstrating why he’s one of the world’s top GT talents, despatching lapped cars and rivals for position with equal efficiency. “That was crazy, I must have passed 10 or 15 cars in that stint,” he smiled. “The car was already very good in the wet yesterday and it was perfect today, too. This is my first time in the 997 GT3 R and I’m really enjoying it.” His efforts were enough to claim the final GTS class podium sport for Autorlando, ahead of Griffin and the Bontempelli/Nicola De Marco Ferrari in seventh and eighth.
Stop Press – It seems the two Bhai Tech cars have been penalised post race – so this promotes the Bleekemolen/ Di Guida Porsche to fourth overall and the GTS win.
At the time of writing, there is not yet a confirmed timetable for tomorrow’s running at the track – though all are hoping the now 70-minute Sunday race will run close to its intended starting time of 12:00pm CET.
Photo’s by FOTOSPEEDY
Stephen Errity (@83ste)
