Peter Kox and Stefan Rosina have won the FIA GT Series Main Race at Zolder this afternoon. The Lamborghini Blancpain Reiter Lamborghini Gallardo finished first after a great battle with the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra of Stephane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor.
Jan Seyffarth spun his Mercedes into turn 2 right after the start, causing a lot of problems for other drivers. Sebastien Loeb, who had already made up several positions, was pushed onto the grass, Lucas Ordonez could not avoid the Mercedes and hit it causing severe damage to the left front of the Nissan GT-R. Mark Shulzhitskiy’s Nissan was also involved in the first lap incident and both Nissans returned to the pit. Shulzhitskiy rejoined the race, Ordonez retired his car.
Kox had no problems at all and quickly increased his lead. After 5 laps his lead over Ortelli was 4.6 seconds and after 10 laps it had increased to 5.5 seconds. Edward Sandstrom was third, but the Swede was too aggressive on his tires and subsequently lost even more ground to Kox and Ortelli.
Sandstrom was the first to pit, followed by Ortelli and Kox and quick pitstops by the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT pit crew resulted in the gap between the leading Lamborghini and the #11 Audi was reduced to just 3.3 seconds when all the pit stops had been completed.
Vanthoor pushed hard and the gap between his Audi and Stefan Rosina’s Lamborghini became smaller each lap. By lap 27 the gap was down to two seconds and three laps later he was only one second behind the Slovakian driver.
The young Belgian closed the gap and with 10 minutes remaining he started flashing his lights to show Rosina he was there. The two drivers fought hard but fair and during the last 10 minutes of the race they were bumper-to-bumper on several occasions.
Vanthoor tried to pass Rosina as the pair went onto the last lap, but Rosina kept the nose of his Lamborghini in front and successfully defended his position once more in the Jacky Ickx chicane. After 39 laps he finished just four tenths of a second ahead of Vanthoor. Frank Stippler brought the #12 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra home in third place, ahead of the #10 Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren.
“I tried to concentrate and not look in the mirrors,” said Rosina after the race. “I didn’t expect a move in the last chicane anymore, but luckily I was in the right place.” “We knew we had a good car and everything went right today. It is a fantastic feeling,” added Peter Kox.
“It was a good and fair fight. The way it has to be in motorsport,” said a slightly disappointed Laurens Vanthoor. “They were better, but not quicker,” said Vanthoor’s teammate Stephane Ortelli.
The next round of the FIA GT Series will take the teams to Zandvoort.
MtC
