2010 GT1 World Championship

[Bram Hengeveld]

Next stop will be Núrburgring Jaaay

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Nicolas Prost, the son of four-times Formula One champion Alain, will drive the Matech Ford GT No.6 for the remainder of the season starting at the Nurburgring next weekend.

Prost will partner Neel Jani who debuted with the team last month at Spa. Like Neel, Nicolas has competed in both A1GP and the 24 hours of Le Mans in the LMP1 category.

28-year-old Prost takes over the seat of Romain Grosjean, who has decided to focus on his openwheel career by grabbing a seat in the competitive GP2 series. Grosjean is known to the public for his short formula 1 career with Renault after Piquet's Crashgate.

The Swiss based Matech Competition team is changing their driver line-up almost every round. Does this take away the charm of the driver championship for you?

 

[Konrad Stanczak]

The charm of driver championship was never there since each car is driven by pairs.
GT1 is team oriented and i love it that way.

 

[Ross Balfour]

Prost is still yet to prove to me that he's a good driver, maybe this time round he will convince me, Jani will be a hard teammate to match.

 

[Pieter Theron]

Carbon copy of Prost Snr in his early years..

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Country: Germany
Length: 5.148 km (3.2 mi)
Turns: 16
Free Practice: 27 Aug 10:40 - 27 Aug 12:00 GMT
Pre-Qualifying: 27 Aug 16:10 - 27 Aug 17:30 GMT
Qualifying: 28 Aug 09:00 - 28 Aug 10:00 GMT LIVE@RD
Qualifying Race: 28 Aug 14:15 - 28 Aug 15:05 GMT LIVE@RD
Warm-up: 29 Aug 10:15 - 29 Aug 10:45 GMT LIVE@RD
Championship Race: 29 Aug 15:15 - 29 Aug 16:15 GMT LIVE@RD

LIVE BROADCAST & CHAT @ RD: click here and enjoy the Battle of the Brands in the FIA GT1 World Championship!

 

[Jarrod Keen]

Agreed, matter of a fact this is the only championship that I follow closely..... I'd like to see the Ferrari get back into this series. Not that I'm a fan, it just belongs here.

 

[Jarrod Keen]

Fia Gt at Nurgurgring

What car do you think will win this leg of the Championship?

Maserati
Nissan Gtr 35
Ford GT40
Corvette
Aston Martin
Lamborghini

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I think the Mad-Croc Corvette will win. It had great pace on Spa, but unfortunately they got a puncture. Now the bad luck must be over

All sessions live tomorrow, can't wait

 

[Jarrod Keen]

Zero votes for the Aston....

 

[Sérgio Marques]

The FIA GT1 World Championship travels to Portugal for the seventh round of a enthralling 2010 season with five of the six marques having already tasted victory.

This weekend’s FIA GT1 World Championship will be supported by the FIA GT3 European Championship and the GT4 European Cup, plus single-seater action from Superleague Formula.

A lap of the Algarve with Miguel Ramos

Vitaphone Racing Maserati driver Miguel Ramos is only one of two Portuguese drivers competing in this weekend’s FIA GT1 World Championship race at Portimao. The other is Pedro Lamy at Young Driver Aston Martin. Ramos, 38, shares his No.2 Maserati MC12 with Brazilian Enrique Bernoldi this season.

Ramos describes a lap of the 4.7km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve ...

“I raced in Portimao twice last year, in the Le Mans Series and FIA GT Championship. For me this is one of the best circuits in Europe. It mixes high speed and low speed turns, it has a huge straight line and in my opinion to be just perfect it only lacks an inner straight a bit longer.

"It is very demanding physically and G forces are felt, particularly in the parabolic just before the finish line.

“Down the pit straight I accelerate very hard and reach 280kmh. Approaching turn one, I downshift from sixth to fourth gear and since this year the car lacks some downforce, this turn is negotiated at around 150kmh.

“Turn two is a fast one and it’s only just before turn three, a tight right, that I have to brake real hard. I must be very careful here; if I brake on the apex I may easily lose the tail of the car.

“From here it’s all the way uphill until turn four, a very fun turn to negotiate. It’s a blind one and I use every portion of the tarmac, and even ‘bite’ the run-off area, in order to build speed for the inner straight, where I reach approximately 200kmh.

“At the end of the inner straight, I brake very hard for turn five - almost a hairpin, which I drive at around 70kmh. Some drivers go for first gear here but I personally think second gear is enough and this way I give the gearbox some rest too.

“Uphill again for turns six and seven, another excellent part of this track. Braking hard for turns seven and eight and again I must not brake on the apex as you might lose the rear of the car and spin.

“Exiting turn eight is a slow process and now approaching turn nine, one of the fantastic turns of this track. It feels almost like diving and G forces are very strong when I reach the bottom of the slope.

“All the way uphill to turn 10, the most difficult one in my opinion. It’s a blind turn which has to be taken in permanent braking. I don’t see the exit of the turn nor which way is it going, and to make things worse this is a double-apex turn.

“From turns 10 to 11, downhill again. Turn 11 is another great one before braking hard again for turn 12. Grip is generally good throughout this track, except for turn 13 where a slight negative camber unbalances the car.

“From here we come to turn 14. It was here that last year in the LMS race I felt G forces around 3.6G, but this year the Maserati has lost much of its aerodynamic support, so I anticipate we should feel around 2G.

"Turn 14 is the last one of the track, a parabolic right which leads to the finish line.

“The Algarve track does not offer many overtaking points. This year the Maserati is in a large disadvantage when compared to its competitors as it is too heavy and has lost power.

"Our chances for overtaking will be in the braking points just before the turns and sometimes we take too many risks there. But I look forward to racing again in my country.”

LIVE BROADCAST & CHAT @ RD: click here and enjoy the Battle of the Brands in the FIA GT1 World Championship!

 

[Xosé Estrada]

Looking forward for this race, is always cool to see big competitions going to a country full of motorsports fans like our neighbours, instead to a country where nobody cares but a sheik and his friends.

 

[Sérgio Marques]

What the drivers say, after Free Practice...

Bas Leinders, Marc VDS Ford GT No.40

“We managed to set the fastest lap but this was only a Free Practice. Those extra horsepower we are having for this race are not really that important because at the same time we got some extra kilos added as well.

"In this track the engine is not as important as it was in the Nürburgring but at least the extra power will allow us to keep the pace with our competitors. The circuit seems favourable to our Ford GT, let’s see what happens.

Algarve is a wonderful track, I love it.”

Miguel Ramos, Vitaphone Racing Maserati No.2

“We went for this Free Practice with a different set-up and were much slower than our No.1 car (Bartels/Bertolini). We’ve tested a new differential but it did not work very well. Enrique (Bernoldi) was a bit faster than me, some three tenths of a second, but still very far from our No.1 car. So for this afternoon’s pre-qualifying we will go back to the basic set-up and see how things go.

"The only problem our Maserati has in this circuit is the weight. Since most of this track’s slow turns exit up the hill, then the car gets really slow. If instead we went downhill after those slow turns it would be great.”

Xavier Maassen, Mad-Croc Racing Corvette No.11

“We had a little spin at turn number nine, it was Julien (Jousse) at the wheel and yellow flags went on. But it was nothing special, just a spin, and everything is fine for the pre-qualifying.”

Peter Dumbreck, Sumo Power Nissan GT-R No.23

“There are some quick corners which suit us and some slow ones that usually don't, but Michael went quickest in his first lap on slicks, so it looks like it might be good for us. I'd expect us to be up there fighting for a top six, we should be everywhere we go."

Darren Turner, Young Driver Aston Martin No.7

"The track was getting better and better every lap. Surprisingly as we are running with 40kg ballast, the performance and balance of the car doesn't feel too bad. I don't want to get too excited but we are looking OK at the moment.

"I've raced here a few times and done quite a bit of testing and I really like it. It's challenging with a few slow corners and a few high speed corners and the fact that it has so much elevation change is really nice. For a new circuit it's probably the best one out there at the moment.”

Just start my countdown to another trip to the Algarve, tomorrow 325 km waiting for me and other ones to returning on Sunday evening, but this "boys" should worth do it!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Going to be a very interesting race. Would be nice if Bas could keep the first spot.

Are they expecting a lot of visitors? I always have the impression that nobody visits the algarve circuit for some reason.

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

Watching the qualy now. Great coverage as always. Lovely soundtrack from these cars too

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The race is now live!!!!
http://www.racedepartment.com/content/680-fia-gt1-player.html

 

[Xosé Estrada]

Going to be a very interesting race. Would be nice if Bas could keep the first spot.

Are they expecting a lot of visitors? I always have the impression that nobody visits the algarve circuit for some reason.

Maybe is because grandstands are huge and there are a lot of them around the track, so it gives the impression of being empty with 20.000 or 30.000 persons inside.

But what I also noticed is they knew this so they made the empty grandstands look like huge advertisements, so they only open a part of the track to the public and the rest works like that. I'm sure they financed the track like that.

Cya!.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Bas Leinders (MarcVDS Racing) said on Twitter after the race:

Portimao - I am getting enough of driver standards in this championship!!! there is some serious dangerous driving and the FIA does nothing

Few hours later followed by:

Not sure we will race tomorow, as all the team and Marc van der Straten are not very happy at the moment

Seems that not everybody enjoyed the close racing yesterday. Curious what will happen today as the #40 car was indeed not classified during the warmup

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

FIA GT1 host Hailey and Johnny Herbert went for a drive in a little nice Gallardo. But then you get lost and end up on the Green Hell. Enjoy the awesome racing sounds of Hailey ehm the car of course

Oh btw don't forget to tune in this afternoon at 13:00 GMT to watch the full championship race live from Portimao here on RD: linky to click

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=160409960637909

 

[Patrick van Driel]

Love the sound of her engine