The Saleen in the hands of pole-sitter Jean-Marc Gounon set a commanding pace at the start, pulling away from the Jamie Campbell-Walter Lister Storm. The Frenchman set the fastest lap of the race on the second lap, and continued to pull away, ending his stint with a lead of over 15 seconds. Gounon handed over to Toni Seiler, but an excellent pit-stop from the BMS Ferrari 550 of Bobbi/Biagi, which had been lying third, took it into the lead. With the Saleen slowing somewhat the leading BMS Ferrari built up a large lead. The Piccini/Deletraz Lister Storm moved up to second, followed by the other BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 550 of Gollin/Cappellari. Campbell-Walter got back in the Lister and began to charge up the field, the fastest man on the track. With 40 minutes of the race left, he was 22 seconds behind Gollin. He closed to within 4 seconds, but dropped back on the final lap, realising he was unable to move up to third. At the same time, a colossal battle was going on between Piccini and Gollin for second, with the gap between the two rarely more than two seconds for the whole of the final stint. Matteo Bobbi took the chequered flag ahead of Piccini in the Lister, with Gollin third in the Ferrari, Campbell-Walter fourth and the Ferrari 550 of Care Racing in fifth. In the N-GT class the JMB Racing 360 Modena of Bertolini/ Simone made the best start, taking the lead ahead of pole-sitter Ortelli in the Freisinger Porsche. On lap 6 Ortelli took the lead, after an excellent, clean battle between the two drivers. Bertolini, suffering from tyre problems, dropped back, with the EMKA Porsche and the two Team Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 360s moving up behind the leading Freisinger Porsche. After the pit stops, the JMB 360 began to recover and Fabrizio De Simone
brought the car back up to second place. The TMC 360 of Turner/Burt had
a long pit stop and dropped out of contention, leaving the second TMC
360 of Davies/ Mullen in third place ahead of the EMKA Porsche. Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.
|