WEC Interlagos Race Report By @James_Newbold Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer were victorious at Interlagos as persistent problems plagued their rivals. The reigning WEC champions were fairly evenly matched with team-mates Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Loic Duval in the early stages, but were effectively handed the race when Duval lost his right rear tyre leaving the pits, the loose wheel bizarrely landing on the rear bodywork and carried back to the pits. It would only get worse for the Le Mans-winning crew, who were hit by two penalties – a thirty second stop and hold penalty for speeding in the pitlane and a minute’s stop and hold for an unsafe release – to make a bad day worse. Fortunately for Audi, the lone Toyota was no longer in the race to capitalise on their misfortunes, Stephane Sarrazin the innocent bystander as Lotus driver Dominik Kraihamer lost control in the fast turn three. Sarrazin tried valiantly to get the Toyota back to the pits but the damage proved terminal. During the long safety car period to repair the barriers, the Rebellion Lola briefly led, but was no match for the Audis and Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche were only too happy to settle for an outright podium. A mammoth treble stint by Mike Conway laid the foundations for G-Drive to claim victory in LMP2, with Roman Rusinov and John Martin seeing off the challenge of Le Mans class winners Bertrand Baguette, Martin Plowman and Ricardo Gonzalez. Pecom Racing’s Nicolas Minassian, Pierre Kaffer and Luis Perez-Companc rounded out the podium, ahead of the Greaves Zytek given a new lease of life by former F3000 champion Bjorn Wirdheim, the Swede making a promising start to his prototype racing career. In GTE, Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke doggedly tracked Gianmaria Bruni and Giancarlo Fisichella throughout the race, keeping the Ferrari pairing close enough that they could not afford to make a mistake without ever threatening to mount a challenge. An early puncture removed Marc Lieb and Richard Leitz from contention, so it was left to Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Pilet to lead Porsche’s challenge, a lonely third their only reward. There was no shortage of drama further as back Toni Vilander’s Ferrari was engulfed in flames and fan favourite Bruno Senna suffered suspension failure which brought his and Rob Bell’s day to a premature end. The no. 95 Danish Aston Martin of Kristian Poulsen, Christoffer Nygaard and Nicki Thiim would have been worthy winners in GTE-Am, having mixed it with the Pro entrants in the team’s first race since the tragic death of Allan Simonsen at Le Mans, before a detached wheel for Poulsen in the final hour cruelly conspired to deny them. Their misfortune promoted British duo Jamie Campbell-Walter and Stuart Hall to a lead they would hold to the flag, with Davide Rigon leading 8-Star regulars Enzo Potolicchio and Rui Aguas to second and the no. 88 Proton Competition Porsche of Christian Ried, Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti third.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 21:15:32 +0000
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