.jpg)
Championship Race
Marc Basseng and Markus Winkelhock completed a dominant weekend in Zolder, romping to a comprehensive Championship Race victory in their No.38 All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport Lamborghini Murcielago one day after collecting the team's first GT1 win in the Qualifying Race.
It was an impressive performance from the German duo who led from pole and crossed the line over nine seconds ahead at the flag. Second was the No.4 Aston Martin DBR9 of Christian Hohenadel and Andrea Piccini who again benefitted from some slick work from the Hexis AMR crew in the pit stop.
Third place went to the No.7 Young Driver Aston Martin of Alex Müller and Tomas Enge, with the No.5 Swiss Racing Lamborghini of Karl Wendlinger and Peter Kox pipping the No.11 Exim Bank Team China Chevrolet Corvette of Mike Hezemans and Nicky Catsburg at the line to clinch fourth.
.jpg)
The No.37 All-Inkl.com Lamborghini of Dominik Schwager and Nicky Pastorelli, which had set pole in Abu Dhabi , was also an early casualty, while the No.6 Swiss Racing Lamborghini of Jiri Janak and Max Nilsson wasn't able to start the race due to an oil pump problem.
For the Nissan GT-R teams, the Championship Race mirrored the disappointment of the Qualifying race, with three of the four Nissan GT-R's on the grid involved in early accidents that forced their retirement. Again, the German pairing of Michael Krumm and Lucas Luhr in the No. 23 JR Motorsports car was highest amongst the Nissans, scoring two Championship points by finishing ninth.
The Nissan GT-R's started 7th (No.23 JRM), 11th (No.21 Sumo Power GT), 12th (No.20 Sumo Power GT) and 16th (No.22 JRM) on the grid respectively, after a tough Qualifying Race beset by bad luck and plenty of drama, but both the JRM and Sumo Power GT teams were confident of being able to make up places with a good start in the race. Unfortunately those hopes were to be dashed almost immediately.
.jpg)
As the lights went green for the rolling start, and with the 17 cars on the grid tightly packed together and jostling to gain an advantage, Ricardo Zonta in the No.20 Sumo Power GT touched the No.47 DKR Corvette, the resulting impact causing the Brazilian to hit his team-mate Jamie Campbell-Walter in the No.21 Sumo Power GT. The two Nissans found themselves side-by-side, with Campbell-Walter pushed hard against the wall of the opening straight, causing enormous damage and instant retirement for both cars on lap one.
As the field came through the first lap it was the No.38 Lamborghini in the lead ahead of the No.11 Exim Bank Team China Corvette of Mike Hezemans and Nicky Catsburg. The field remained tightly bunched, however, with less than four seconds covering the top eight after five laps, and the order condensed further three laps later when the Safety Car came out.
.jpg)
Peter Dumbreck in the No.22 JRM Nissan GT-R had dived down the inside of the No.40 Marc VDS Ford GT and looked to have the line, but spun as the Ford refused to cede ground and was collected by the helpless No.9 Belgian Racing Ford GT, the resulting damage causing a lengthy Safety Car spell. Once again, the huge amount of damage to the No.22 Nissan GT-R meant instant retirement. After just seven minutes of the race, there was just one Nissan GT-R left competing on-track.
With the race resuming just one lap before the pit lane window opened, pit stops were crucial and Hexis again pulled off a superb stop to help the No.4 Aston Martin DBR9 of Andrea Piccini and Christian Hohenadel vault from ninth to second.
The All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport Lamborghini matched Hexis' superb 49-second stop however, and the No.38 Lamborghini Murcielago emerged with a healthy lead which it proceeded to build in the closing stages, eventually coming nine seconds clear to give the team its second consecutive victory in Zolder.
.jpg)
The No.11 Exim Bank Team China Corvette had claimed second after the pit stops but was picked off firstly by the No.4 Hexis Aston Martin and then by its sister No.7 Young Driver car, with the two DBR9's rounding out the podium.
The No.11 Chevrolet Corvette tried to respond and exerted huge pressure on the No.7 Aston Martin, only to fade badly in the closing stages and fall into the clutches of the No.5 Swiss Racing Lamborghini, which claimed fourth on the run down to the chequered flag, 0.025s ahead of Catsburg in the Chevy Corvette.
Hexis' No.3 DB9 claimed sixth ahead of Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke in the No.8 Young Driver Aston Martin, which had to work extremely hard to keep the No.41 Marc VDS Ford GT of Frederic Makowiecki and Maxime Martin at bay.
.jpg)
Lucas Luhr in the only remaining Nissan GT-R had a strong drive behind the wheel of the No.23 JRM car to find himself right on the tail of the sixth place car as the pit window opened after 25 minutes. A good pitstop was vital if teammate Michael Krumm was to make the most of the strong position his fellow German teammate had created for the team, but the resulting tire change was not the smoothest, and valuable time ended up being lost.
The delayed stop saw Krumm rejoining the race in 10th place, and he was to drive incredibly hard for the remainder of the race to try and make up the No.23 Nissan GT-R's lost time, forcing a mistake from the No.40 Marc VDS Ford GT in order to pass into ninth place on lap 32, and then getting within milliseconds of the No.41 Ford GT in eighth, although ultimately he wasn't able to pass.
.jpg)
Speaking afterwards, Lucas Luhr commented: “After the huge incident on the opening straight I was just happy to get to the first corner intact, and then I was able to push on. The car felt really good out there, and I thought we had a pretty good race strategy, with a quick pitstop I really think that we could have been challenging for a top three position, but that unfortunately didn't happen. Michael drove a brilliant second half of the race, and pushed the car hard and he came close to getting eighth. but it's a hard track on which to overtake. Overall we have to focus on the positives, such as the great way the car handled, rather than any negatives, and really take these forward with us to the next race in three weeks' time."
Luhr's JRM team-mate Richard Westbrook, who watched No.22 JRM co-driver Peter Dumbreck being knocked out of the race from the team garage, offered a reflective viewpoint on the day's events, saying: “These races, and, in Nissan's case, weekends do happen occasionally, but we learn and move on. The best thing we can do is forget about what happened at Zolder and prepare as best we can for Portimao. We'll have a point to prove there, and we'll come out fighting to put our season back on track.