[FIA GT] GT 1 Rounds 13 and 14 - Autódromo Internacional do Algarve - 17/19 September

[I Rosputnik]

Infomation

After the domination of Nürburgring by Young Driver AMR, the series now heads to Portimão in Portugal.

The teams championship is beginning to hot up now with Vitaphone still in the lead, but they are now being closely followed by the Lamboghinis of Reiter Engineering in second and Young Driver AMR in third.

Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini currently lead the drivers championship with 91 points a piece while the sole orignal driver from Matech, Thomas Mutsch, follows in second with 77 points and after their stunning run in Germany; Tomáš Enge and Darren Turner are now in joint 3rd with 65 points.

Not long now, with only Algarve, Navarra, Interlagos and San Luis left. Maybe Sumo Power could be wild card in this.

***

And for those following the GT1 facebook page -Or not- the representive has said that next years calendar will be annouced next month. Lets see if the USA, China and Russia makes it on...

...and I would like to see the Alpina soon, quite badly.

[JayBMS]

No changes to the BoP as of yet! could work well for Aston again

[NightStalk3r]

Originally Posted by JayBMS

No changes to the BoP as of yet! could work well for Aston again

They will have 40kg Success ballast

[I Rosputnik]

What the drivers say.

[Victor_RO]

Apparently Christopher Nygaard is out of this race due to "family commitments". Pedro Lamy will step in as a substitute. http://twitter.com/YoungDriverAMR

[I Rosputnik]

Here's the All-Inkl.com Münnich Lambo's doing some PR.

[Deleted]

Please tell me it's not Edwards and/or Herbert commentating again.

[NightStalk3r]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Please tell me it's not Edwards and/or Herbert commentating again.

it will be the terrible duo again no doubt.

[Deleted]

I see there is some BTCC this weekend, so at least we should be able to avoid the lesser evil. Herbert seems to have a more long term deal on this, ugh. I'm sure he'll be there for the weather.

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by NightStalk3r

They will have 40kg Success ballast

They only ballast the winning Astons right? At 1230kg they are still 20kg under their minimum weight posted on the website. Success ballast is idiotic, but changing the minimum weight of a marque when some teams are struggling already goes beyond idiotic.

[NightStalk3r]

They have been taking weight off the Aston all year and adding more and more to the Corvette and Ford, the Lambo, Nissan and Massarati seem to be largely left alone.

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by NightStalk3r

They have been taking weight off the Aston all year and adding more and more to the Corvette and Ford, the Lambo, Nissan and Massarati seem to be largely left alone.

The Masser is currently running at 1255kg; they have run at a lower minimum weight in the past. According to the website they are only 5kg over their minimum weight. Saw this joke of a post over on the GT3…

Could the Championship Be Won in Portugal?

A hilarious paragraph…

“Who will be victorious in Portugal? Can the Corvettes be beaten? Can one of the other marques join Corvette, Porsche, Audi and BMW as race winners in 2010? The podium finishing cars in Paul Ricard have to carry success ballast in the next two races. The nr101 Corvette will carry the maximum 40kg, while the nr16 Corvette will get 30kg. The two Porsches (nr 11 and nr61) will carry 10kg each thanks to their third place finishes in France.”

The Corvettes will also carry 80kg more minimum weight and a smaller restrictor in addition to the success ballast, so much for a real GT3 championship.

Olivier Panis over in FFSA GT series..."In short, today is not a championship, it's a circus or a general fraud!"

I couldn't agree more.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by kyoung

The Masser is currently running at 1255kg; they have run at a lower minimum weight in the past. According to the website they are only 5kg over their minimum weight. Saw this joke of a post over on the GT3…

Could the Championship Be Won in Portugal?

A hilarious paragraph…

“Who will be victorious in Portugal? Can the Corvettes be beaten? Can one of the other marques join Corvette, Porsche, Audi and BMW as race winners in 2010? The podium finishing cars in Paul Ricard have to carry success ballast in the next two races. The nr101 Corvette will carry the maximum 40kg, while the nr16 Corvette will get 30kg. The two Porsches (nr 11 and nr61) will carry 10kg each thanks to their third place finishes in France.”

The Corvettes will also carry 80kg more minimum weight and a smaller restrictor in addition to the success ballast, so much for a real GT3 championship.

Olivier Panis over in FFSA GT series..."In short, today is not a championship, it's a circus or a general fraud!"

I couldn't agree more.

When was the 80kg enforced on the Callaways?

If they have had time to test with it, I don't see an issue. They were much faster at Ricard and some of it was driver talent.

I'm looking for the BMW Z4's to continue its march forward.

[Deleted]

Perhaps they should advertise these series as "the ultimate battle of ballast and restrictors".

Apparently Hindy will be @ Algarve for Superleague yet again, but I assume he won't have anything to do with SRO GTs?

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Apparently Christopher Nygaard is out of this race due to "family commitments". Pedro Lamy will step in as a substitute. http://twitter.com/YoungDriverAMR

Great to have Pedro Lamy step in, should do well (well as good as success ballast will allow)

[The359]

Lamy's car wont have the success ballast.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by The359

Lamy's car wont have the success ballast.

Woops. For some reason I thought he was in the other car with Enge.

Lamy and Mucke should be very strong.

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by dj4monie

When was the 80kg enforced on the Callaways?

If they have had time to test with it, I don't see an issue. They were much faster at Ricard and some of it was driver talent.

I'm looking for the BMW Z4's to continue its march forward.

That’s not the point, they penalized every Corvette team despite the fact that all teams are not having the same success; you can’t test away 80kg and a smaller restrictor.

Callaway Competition boss Ernst Wöhr says. "It looks like the organisers only took the brilliant performance of Christian and Daniel into account, and therefore took the whole Corvette brand in kin liability. I hope our two championship contenders will have two good races and will be able to clinch the title already this weekend.”

FIA GT3 Portimão: Callaway Competition Preview

[The359]

I notice the FIA entry list for Algarve claims that Young Driver AMR have been fined for something at the Nurburgring. Any clue what that was?

[rich07]

Jos Menten replaces Ricardo Zonta at Reiter and HHH driver Bert Longin will fight for the Belgian GT championship lead instead so will be replaced by Alessandro Pier Guidi.

[The359]

Pier Guidi still needs a teammate though.

[helgi]

I think AMR 'young' driver Enge made some donuts after the finish. Maybe for that he was fined. And Pier Guidi's team mate is Niko Verdonk if I remember correct.

And I'll have to watch all that nonsense (or no sense?) racing. It's awful. With all that ballast juggling the bosses openly choose the winner. Who's going to win this time? Lamy I think. He's a great Portuguese driver. And who's going to take the title? Vitaphone of course. Second goes to Matech, and then maybe some Reiter for fourth or fifth.

[WMUCarGuy]

Why is Mad Croc now only running 1 car on top of Phoenix just running one?

[I Rosputnik]

http://www.gt1world.com/news/article...VDS GT on top.

Hmm, there's 3 vette's on the results.

[The359]

The FIA entry list has 3 Corvettes, Maassen didn't have a teammate at the time of publishing, but it is now known to be Julien Jousse. DSC has their entry list wrong.

Pier Guidi will be teamed with Nikolaus Mayr-Melnhof