Ferrari One-Two in Barcelona SRWC Opener
9.4.01

BMS Scuderia Italia's Ferrari 333SP's scored a convincing one-two at Barcelona in the first round of the 2001 FIA Sportscar Championship.

Pole sitters Christian Pescatori and Marco Zadra took the flag over a minute ahead of the sister 333SP driven by Angelo Zadra, Enzo Calderari and Lilian Bryner.

Pescatori gave Zadra Jr a huge lead at the change over on 48 laps and the 22-year-old Italian picked up his team mate's mantle and cruised to his first win in sportscars, despite virtually no brakes towards the end of the race. “It was very difficult in the last few laps as I had virtually no brakes left, but we had given ourselves a good cushion to fall back on to” said the Italian.

The only likely threat to the Ferrari stranglehold came from the Courage-Peugeot C60 of Sebastian Bourdais and ‘Jules’ Boullion. The French car, managed by sportscar legend Henri Pescarolo, held second place until an electrical problem ended its race on the one and a half-hour mark.

Matching their third place in the corresponding race last year, the R&M Riley & Scott of Gary Formato and Mauro Baldi claimed the bottom rung of the podium, despite several problems afflicting their race.

Casualties included the GLV Brums Ferrari-Judd, which retired on the second lap after running fourth.

The SR2 points seemed to be going to the SportsRacing Team Sweden Lola of Thed Bjork and Larry Oberto. But within sight of the flag, Bjork lost the car and spent five minutes in a gravel trap. That gave a debut win to the Pilbeam of F3-racers Martin O’Connell and Warren Carway, who had tailed the Lola for the entire race.

The next round of the championship is the Monza 1000kms on April 22, when Ferrari will be looking to follow up its Spanish victory on home tarmac.

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