The #60 SMP Racing Ferrari of Roman Mavlanov and Daniel Zampieri won the first of the weekend’s two GT Open races at a breezy Jerez circuit, with some great racing behind from the 17- car grid.
Zampieri qualified second overall and on pole in Super GT class, a third of a second behind the GTS-class #60 Novadriver Audi of Cesar Campanico. Zampieri led away from the rolling start into the first corner, however. Second-row starters Andrea Montermini (#1 Villorba Corse Ferrari) and Isaac Tutumlu (#6 Selleslagh Racing Corvette) briefly swapped positions at the start, but soon settled after a busy opening lap.
Two laps in, Zampieri, Campanico and Montermini had pulled slightly ahead of Tutumlu, who had his own mirrors full of the #56 AF Corse Ferrari of Paolo Ruberti. Tutumlu was clearly under pressure, with the car running wide out of corners, and looking more edgy under late braking.
By lap 12, the leading trio had pulled a gap on the rest of the field, but hadn’t gained any ground on each other. Montermini was growing impatient and went alongside Campanico at the chicane, but he wasn’t quite close enough. The Italian made a better attempt at the final bed, which was again not enough, then finally got past Campanico at turn one. But he immediately outbraked himself back into third and into the grasp of fourth-place Tutumlu who then proceeded to chase him even harder,
Montermini made another attempt on Campanico a lap later at turn five, resulting in light contact between both cars but thankfully no damage.
Meanwhile, there were several people on the move throughout the midfield. Matt Griffin in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari recovered to seventh after a poor start, while Archie Hamilton in the #4 V8 Racing Corvette and Alvaro Barba in the #5 Drivex Porsche 997 were locked in an intense battle for ninth. Craig Dolby in the #74 Nova Race Nissan GT-R, making its GT Open debut got involved just as the pit window opened.
Hamilton was the first of the front runners to pit, handing the Corvette over to Diederick Sijthoff. It all came to an end for this car on his outlap, however, as the car lost its left rear wheel at turn five, slid into the gravel and retired on the spot.
Next of the leaders in was third-placed Montermini, handing over to Niccolo Schiro during a long 95-second stop given their previous good results. Zampieri and Campanico stayed in their cars for as long as possible, and both had only the standard 70-second stop to complete.
Campanico handed to Aditya Patel, while Zampieri left it until the dying seconds of the pit window, increasing the gap as much as possible before handing over to Roman Mavlanov. This paid off, as Mavlanov rejoined with a healthy 17-second lead over Patel and Giorgio Roda, who was now third in the #56 Ferrari started by Ruberti.
Duncan Cameron, having taken over from Matt Griffin in the #54 Ferrari was quickly relieved of fifth position by a hard-charging Matteo Beretta in the #13 Autorlando Porsche, Joel Camathias having given it a good run prior to the stops. Championship leader Maxime Soulet in the #6 Corvette and Nicky Pastorelli in the #2 Corvette also made short work of the Cameron Ferrari.
With less than 20 laps remaining, Pastorelli got ahead of Soulet coming out of the final bend for sixth, only for Soulet’s car to suddenly stop at the pitlane exit. The battle between the Corvettes had allowed the second SMP Ferrari (the #61 of Vyacheslav Maleev and Jose-Maria Perez-Aicart) to gain. Aicart was quickly past Pastorelli for sixth, picking up from Maleev’s slower opening stint.
Behind, a solid battle for eigth was underway, with Dennis Retera in the #99 V8 Racing Corvette pushing Cameron to ninth. He subsequently dropped to 11th behind Thomas Fjordbach in the #5 DriveX Porsche and Lorenzo Bontempelli in the #74 Nova Race Nissan (who’d taken over from Dolby).
With less than 10 minutes to go, Mavlanov still led, but was lapping up to four seconds slower than his team-mate had been. Patel rapidly stripped the lead away at the rate of a second per lap, while Roda maintained a distant but secure third position. Patel managed to get the gap down to 1.8 seconds as the chequered flag fell, but couldn’t overhaul Mavlanov for the win. Beretta really got the #13 Porsche moving in the last few minutes of the race, hounding Schirro in the #1 Ferrari, but it wasn’t enough for him to gain fourth place.
Ed Fahey
Photos: FOTOSPEEDY
