RACE 1
SMP Ferrari duo Daniel Zampieri and Roman Mavlanov claimed their third GT Open win of the season at Monza on Saturday, launching themselves right into the midst of the title battle in the process. Fellow championship contenders Miguel Ramos and Nicky Pastorelli had a nightmare 70-minute race blighted by two punctures for their V8 Racing Corvette.
Starting from fifth on the grid, Zampieri made up a place at the start by passing Ramos, while ahead of him, third-place qualifier Maxime Soulet in the #4 V8 Racing Corvette leapfrogged Paolo Ruberti’s #56 AF Corse Ferrari to slot into second behind polesitter Archie Hamilton in the #6 SRT Corvette.
Hamilton defended his lead as the field filtered through Rettifilio for the first time, and on lap two Ruberti was dropped two further places by Zampieri and Ramos at Ascari, but continued to lead the GTS class.
Soulet was right on Hamilton’s rear bumper before very long, while further down the field there was disappointment for Max Volker as the Reiter Engineering Camaro expired early on lap five. As Soulet pressured Hamilton, Zampieri began to gain the leading trio, with Ramos holding station in fourth.
Fifth, seventh and eighth place men Ruberti, Federico Leo (AF Corse Ferrari) and Joel Camathias (Autorlando Porsche) were the GTS top three at this point. On lap six, Soulet had a look down the inside of Hamilton as they went into the Parabolica, but had to back out.
Early in the next lap, Ramos took a trip through the gravel on the outside of the Curva Grande, eventually recovering to the pits where a puncture and jammed front-left wheel ended all hopes of a strong result for the #2 car.
Hamilton drove an exemplary defensive race for several laps, but eventually the pressure told and Soulet got past through the first Lesmo. Zampieri would be next to try to overtake the SRT car.
As the pit window opened, Soulet led from Hamilton, Zampieri, Ruberti and title contender Andrea Montermini in the #1 Villorba Corse Ferrari. Next up were Leo, Camathias and eighth-place Nikita Zlobin (son of Sergey) in the #79 AF Corse Ferrari.
Once the order shuffled out after the stops, the #4 Corvette continued to lead, now with GT Open debutant Kelvin Snoeks at the wheel. Ruberti’s co-driver Giorgio Roda was second, ahead of Roman Mavlanov in the car started by Zampieri, Claudio Sdanewitsch in the car started by Leo, Isaac Tutumlu in Hamilton’s SRT Corvette and Niccolo Schirro, who’d taken over the Villorba Ferrari from Montermini.
Seventh-place Matteo Beretta was lying third in GTS, having taken over the Autorlando Porsche from Camathias, and soon demoted Sdanewitsch to move up to second in class. However, a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for taking the incorrect pit handicap would see this car demoted to 15th out of the 16 entries still running at the flag.
Tutumlu quickly got past Leo to join Mavlanov in hunting down Snoeks at the front of the field. Roda sensibly did not make too much trouble for these Super GT runner and instead contented himself with getting the #56 Ferrari home at the front of the GTS class, ahead of Persiani and Zlobin in the #79.
Mavlanov got past Snoeks at the Parabolica with a little over five minutes of the race remaining, while Tutumlu powered past his fellow Corvette driver at the same place on the next lap. Tutumlu couldn’t get past Mavlanov in the remainder of the race, however, so he and Hamilton had to settle for second, ahead of Schirro and Montermini in the Villorba Ferrari. A fuel pump problem on the final lap saw Snoeks and Soulet’s efforts rewarded with just fifth place overall.
RACE 2
Pastorelli and Ramos were able to put Saturday’s woes behind them in Sunday’s 60-minute race, heading up a Corvette 1-2-3 to lead the championship by a single point once again going into the season finale at Barcelona on the first weekend of November.
Pastorelli had secured pole position in the morning’s qualifying session and defended it successfully from fellow front-row starter Tutumlu through the first couple of corners. Behind them, Tomas Enge moved the Reiter Camaro up to third place and into the lead of the GTS class ahead of Richard Lyons in the #80 AF Corse Ferrari. A loose bonnet threatened to derail Pastorelli’s challenge, but it soon flew off and landed off the track harmlessly, eliminating the need for a black-and-orange flag.
After the first couple of laps, Lyons held fourth ahead of a fast-starting Snoeks in the #4 Corvette, Roda in the #56 Ferrari, Jose-Maria Perez-Aicart in the #61 SMP Ferrari, Saturday winner Mavlanov in the #60 sister car and Ivan Jacoma in the #73 Ebimotors Porsche.
Roda and Jacoma soon found themselves outclassed by the cars behind, however, with Matt Griffin in the #54 Ferrari and Schirro in the #1 resuming their own private battle after finding a way past.
Perez-Aicart then successfully challenged Lyons for fifth place overall (Lyons having already ceded a place to Snoeks) and second in GTS. Enge’s Camaro was leading the class and holding third overall, but soon began to come under pressure from Snoeks, who’d pulled away rapidly from the gaggle of Ferraris.
Lyons was focused on mantaining his GTS class podium position, and let Super GT runner Mavlanov through into sixth overall, but behind them, the Griffin/Schirro battle turned ugly when the former was spun out by the latter entering one of the Monza chicanes. The stewards investigated, but engine issues would in any case put paid to Schirro and Montermini’s race just before the pit window opened – their first mechanical retirement of the season.
Snoeks just got ahead of Enge to go third overall before both cars pitted early in the pit window, but the majority of the other runners left it until the last possible moment to stop. Ramos emerged in the lead having taken over from Pastorelli, while Soulet stepped in for Snoeks and came out in second.
Behind them it was Maleev (in for Aicart and leading GTS), Volker (in for Enge), Hamilton (in for Tutumlu) and Mario Cordoni in the #62 Ombra Racing Ferrari. Hamilton made quick work of Volker through the first chicane to take fourth place overall, but Cordoni’s effort was less impressive, leading to a spin that dropped his car to 13th overall at the flag.
Soulet ran Ramos very close as the clock wound down, and Hamilton would take third overall from eventual GTS-class winner Maleev, but the real interest in the second half of the race was the battle for second in GTS between Zlobin’s SMP Ferrari and Stefano Costantini’s Ombra Racing car, with the young Russian just managing to hold out in the runner-up spot.
THE CHAMPIONSHIP
This weekend’s results leave the championship battle very finely poised heading into the Barcelona season finale. Pastorelli and Ramos on 179 points are just one ahead of Mavlanov and Zampieri on 178, with Montermini and Schirro just a further four behind on 175 despite their DNF on Sunday. In GTS, AF Corse’s Roda leads solo on 72 points, but SMP man Perez-Aicart is less than 10 points behind on 63, with Roda’s occasional co-driver Ruberti third on 59.
SE
