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The fourth round of the
GT1 World Championship at Paul Ricard was dominated by
the Vitaphone Racing Maserati MC12 of Andrea Bertolini
and Michael Bartels. The collected everything on offer:
pole position, victory in Saturday's Qualifying Race,
victory in yesterday's Championship Race and swept into
first place in the Drivers' classification while
Viatphone Racing lead the Teams' points standings.
A dominant weekend for
Maserati started with Bertolini (2:03.511) posting the
top time as the Q3 qualifying session came to a close.
The Italian's performance bettered the effort of Peter
Kox (2:04.028) in the Lamborghini Murciélago SV that had
been leading the eight cars left in the last qualifying
session by more than half a second. The Vitaphone Racing
Team had improved as the session unfolded: Bertolini had
placed fourth in Q1 and Bartels second in Q2 before pole
was secured for the MC12. The other Maseratis got
through the first fifteen minute qualifying session but
not the second: Margaritis/Heger (Triple H Team
Hegersport) would start from ninth, Bernoldi/Ramos
(Vitaphone Racing Team) from tenth and Bobbi/Longin
(Triple H Team Hegersport) were twelfth.
Probably foiled by the
‘go’ light malfunction at the start of the qualifying
race, Bartels was overtaken by Kox’s Lamborghini at the
first turn, but the Maserati driver regained the leader
on the eighth lap. When the drivers changed, excellent
teamwork gave further seconds of advantage to Bertolini,
who was able to finish the race all alone at the front.
There was also driver favorable change over for the
Vitaphone Racing Team’s other Maserati. Bernoldi/Ramos
gained two positions when reemerging from their pit
stop, moving from seventh to fifth place and
successfully defending the position until the finish
line. Triple H Team Hegersport’s two other Maserati
MC12s finished eighth with Heger/Margaritis and
fourteenth with Bobbi/Longin.
In race two Bertolini and Bartels won again, to make it
two out of two, reaching the flag with more than seven
seconds in hand over the Nissan of Krumm/Dumbreck. There
was also great satisfaction on the part of Triple H Team
Hegersport for the excellent result obtained by Heger/Margaritis:
after being in eighth place off the start line, the duo
battled up to claim the third step on the podium. Bobbi/Longin's
no. 34 entry, meanwhile, reached eleventh place at the
flag. Vitaphone Racing Team's no. 2, driven by Bernoldi/Ramos,
was less fortunate. It was forced to retire from the
race after contact with Piccini's Corvette while the
Brazilian was defending second position.
"It was a great weekend," said Bertolini. "The entire
team worked in perfect harmony and for the first time we
also won the Championship Race. Thanks to this success
and to the points obtained for first place in the
Qualifying Race, we've reached the top in the Drivers'
classification. The championship is long and
competitive, however, and so we have to keep working in
this direction."
In the Teams' standings
in the FIA GT1 World Championship, after the first four
rounds of the season, Vitaphone Racing has collected 93
points while its closest rival, Sumo Power GT, is 13
points adrift; the two wins at the weekend has increased
the German team's advantage at the top of the
classification. Meanwhile in the Drivers' standings
Bartels and Bertolini move into the top spot and have
have 77 points compared to Grosjean/Mutch who are in
joint second place with 62 points. The next FIA GT1
World Championship round will be held at Spa (Belgium)
in twenty six days time on 31 July.
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