TotalMotorSport All the latest Motorsport news, race reports and photographs from around the world. Alms, Touring Cars, Formula One & Le Mans 24 Hours

Jarama

30/09/2001

Race

Report

The drivers titles are interestingly poised after the tenth round in the Spanish sun: a double win for Ferrari (the Prodrive 550 and the JMB 360) and a second place for Vincent Vosse means that N-GT will come down to Riccitelli (57) against Pescatori and Terrien (56) in Portugal, while GT will see a fight for runner-up spot between Vosse (34), JC-W (33) and Hezemans / Bleekemolen (32).

Prodrive dominated this one from the first pit-stops, a quick one seeing their 550 out ahead, and staying there to the end. Rydell / Menu finished 4 seconds ahead of the first of the Belmondo Vipers, all three of which finished in the top six. Clerico / Kumpen were third, grabbing the place from the Larbre Viper on the penultimate lap. Bailey and Springer salvaged fifth for Lister Storm Racing, despite running most of the race with no clutch. JC-W had a collision with Mike Hezemans early on, the Lister retiring straight away, the Viper much later.

Bouchut led early on, but Bailey upheld Lister honours with a battle with the Prodrive Ferrari, succeeding there and both of them passed Bouchut as the Viper faded. Bailey led until the stops (“I really enjoyed my first stint, although I nearly went off while fighting with Menu”), but Prodrive versus Nicolaus Springer was going to be one-sided. The gentleman struggled to maintain momentum though, handing the clutchless car back to the professsional for a 100 minute run, and a third stop, to fifth.

Vosse and Derichebourg were in second from the mid-point of the race, ahead of the Bleekemolens in #4 and the Belloc Viper – delayed at its first stop. But the second Carsport car was out with a broken camshaft on lap 61, so after the second stops – with the 1 – 2 already looking definite - the highlight of the race was a Clerico / Bouchut scrap for third. The former took it after a mistake from Bouchut with only a lap or so left. The top four all finished on the same lap.

Belmondo / Gosselin were the first of the cars on 109 laps, two laps down, a minute clear of the N-GT winner.

Rickard Rydell seemed particularly pleased as the 550 was carrying 60 kg of ballast, and another size down on restrictors. “We were not the fastest car out there.” He and Menu both referred to the team’s excellent pit stops.

Emmanuel Clerico ran the first and third stints in the third placed Belmondo Viper. “I feel as if we won the race as I was completely lost on this track on Friday! It was my first time here. After the first lap, all my brakes were on the front and I locked the two rear wheels. It took me around 15 laps to make them round again.”

Jamie Campbell-Walter described his incident as “a small crash with Hezemans, and I took him off; I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I didn’t think he would turn in there – I didn’t do it on purpose. But he got going again, and it didn’t do any real damage to our car, just bodywork. However, we then had a recurrence of the vibrations we had had earlier, and although it might have been paranoid, we didn’t want to risk another big fire, so we decided to come in. Perhaps if we would have been fighting for the Championship I would have taken the chance.”

Luca Riccitelli started from pole for RWS, and looked to have the N-GT race in the bag after an hour – he was second overall once the N-GTs pitted. Christian Pescatori started more cautiously (very cautiously on the opening lap), the Ferrari again on a one-stop strategy – although even the team weren’t sure of that before the race. But Pescatori led when Riccitelli stopped to hand over to Quester, followed by the #54 Art Engineering Porsche of Babini and Moccia, and the #57 Freisinger car of Sauvage and Liddell (one-stopping). When the Ferrari eventually stopped, Robin Liddell stayed out a little longer and led briefly, before making his stop.

So Quester led, but had to stop again: from nearly a minute behind, Riccitelli fought hard to catch Terrien in the Ferrari, but the task proved to be too much. Terrien: “The team told me the gap between me and Luca so that I could save fuel and drive the car until the end without an extra pit stop.” Riccitelli went off the track while attempting to lap Wolfgang Kaufmann in the Bengali (Paco Orti) Porsche, but recovered to take the chequered flag in second place and retain the Championship lead by just one point

Third was the # 54 Art Engineering Porsche, Sauvage came home fourth for Freisinger Motorsport, while the battle for sixth was a good one between Sugden and Kaufmann.

Kaufmann: “I saw Luca behind me on the start / finish line, and I braked in the normal way. In the first two right-handed corners, I kept to the right so he continued to close on me. I don’t know why, but he chose to overtake me in the Varzi corner, where there is just one racing line, and he tried to pass on the dirty left side. I just kept going – at the next corner, I would have moved out of the way. I was very worried as I couldn’t see his car behind me, but then he returned, after going through the gravel. At least it didn’t affect the final result. I am happy with my sixth place, and I had a good race with Sugden. His car was better out of the corners, and mine on the straights, so it was a really nice and fair fight. Eventually he saw I was faster and let me through. However, I then spun after a slight collision with a Belmondo Viper, and although I continued, my tyres were on the limit and I could see Tim getting closer and closer. Luckily the race was soon over! I’m happy for Paco Orti and the whole team.”"

Riccitelli was clearly disappointed: “In the end, there is no way to win a race when JMB only stops once and we have to stop twice. The same happened in Magny-Cours. The only thing we can do is to push very hard from the beginning to make a gap but it is also a risk. Then we are always too slow in the pits when we change tyres. We lose 30 seconds compared to JMB. They do a fantastic job in the pits, they have a fantastic strategy. This is the result… We are still in the lead with one point. So it is as if we start from scratch. We will see what happens. For sure, we will do our best.”

It will be decided one way or another at Estoril, in three weeks time.