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Nurburgring

16/09/2001

Race

Report

Franz Konrad's Lola set the pole time on Saturday - in the hands of Ralf Kelleners - but then had its time ruled out for an airbox infringement.

Jan Lammers took his maiden win as a team owner, he and Val Hillebrand bringing the Racing For Holland Dome to a clear win over the Pescarolo Courage.

It had been a dry start to the race, Hillebrand occupying the cockpit of the winning car. He eventually handed the Dome over to Lammers in third place - after rain had hit the track after 25 laps, and everyone had pitted for wets. The Courage led at that stage, piloted by Jean-Christophe Boullion. Lammers eventually took over in third place, and drove away from the #1 Ferrari and the Courage of Boris Derichebourg.

The C60 finally finished a distant second, with the Ascari well down in third after an eventful race. Werner Lupberger spun on lap one, then stayed on slicks during the rain - having pitted early, just before the rain came. As others hit problems, the Judd powered car moved up to third, two laps down.

Gounon had led at the start - a blinding effort from the Frenchman, to lead at the first corner, from sixth....

...but he also pitted for fuel just before the rain arrived. He took on wets after that, but when Sam Hancock took over, a wheelnut came adrift - and then the Ford engine dropped a valve.

The #1 Ferrari was involved in controversy, because the gearbox began to leak oil towards the end of Christian Pescatori's time at the wheel - the 333 had been still in second place, despite finally having the smaller restrictors that have been threatened for so long.

But Zadra had to park the car long before the end, only touring round for a final lap to be classified. The car had apparently taken on oil to do so. With the sister car 'retiring' in the closing stages, Marco earned enough points to be Champion....or did he?

The fun and games started then. John Nielsen / Horoki Katoh had finished fourth, and protested the #1 car for taking on gearbox oil. The stewards didn't see oil being added (others did) so this protest was thrown out. No one could do anything about the 'retirement' of the #2 Ferrari - driven at the time, coincidentally, by Marco's Dad, Angelo - and the situation with the Peter Owen Reynard was odd too. This car had spun in the late rain, and pitted for gravel to be removed. When it returned - or tried to - the red light at the end of the pit lane was shining, because the chequered flag had been shown. Or had it? This car finishing, or not, wouldn't have made a difference to the title going to the last race.

Attention then turned to the Ascari, which was thrown out of the results for an unknown technical infringement, so the Nielsen car finished third, the Marco Zadra car fourth - and Zadra is the Champion.

Nielsen and Katoh had been off form all weekend, with an alleged problem with their Dome chassis.

At least the SR2 title was beyond doubt - the SportsRacing Team Sweden pair of Thed Bjork and Larry Oberto won the class and the SR2 Championship, the Rowan Pilbeam retiring from this one.

Konrad? 'Pole', and then the back of the grid, were followed by a non-start, with fuel feed problems. It was that sort of race - the first proper dry running of the weekend was the three formation laps, before the start.