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The tenth round of the FIA GT Championship held at Estoril had extensive Ferrari interest. Running in the big class were two of the BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 550s, one driven by Piccini/Deletraz and the other by Gounon/Calderari/Bryner. The two cars started from the front row, with Gounon on pole. Tyre choice played an important role at the start of the race because of a sudden rain shower. The track was very wet and initially the two 550s pulled out a small lead but after a few laps the pursuing cars, with intermediate tyres, gained the upper hand. Nevertheless an extremely quick and consistent run by the Piccini/Deletraz car gave them victory after the three hour race, with the second team 550 finishing in fifth place. This was the BMS team's fourth win this year. A third 550 was entered by the Red Bull team for Riccitelli/ Quester. They showed a surprising turn of speed and at one time Riccitelli went into the lead before an oil leak forced the car to retire after one hour. In the N-GT class there were five 360GTs, two entered by the UK-based Veloqx racing team with the driver pairing Sugden/Kirkaldy and Davies/Capelli, and there were also the three usual JMB-run cars. The Veloqx pair had the advantage throughout the weekend and easily out-qualified the JMB cars. During the race the Sugden/Kirkaldy pairing had an excellent run and finished third in class behind two Porsches. The second Veloqx 360 retired with over-heating problems and the highest placed JMB car, that of Pescatori/Bertolini, finished in fourth place. Unfortunately the fading results of the JMB team during the last few races meant that they lost their lead in the N-GT championship, which went to Porsche. So Ferrari did not end up with any driver or team championships but their resurgence during this season brought a lot of interest to the series - they will be back in 2003! Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.
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