01.06.2004 The BMS SCUDERIA Italia team maintained their series lead with a podium finish for Fabrizio Gollin AND Luca Cappellari, despite carrying 100kg of success ballast
The BMS Scuderia Italia team maintained their
Championship lead with a strong podium finish for the nr. 2 car of Fabrizio
Gollin and Luca Cappellari, despite it having 100kg of success ballast.
It keeps the Italian duo at the top of the Drivers’ points table with a 9 point
lead over their Italian-Swiss BMS team mates.
The results only told part of the story however. After an extremely close qualifying session, which saw the top 11 cars all within 2 seconds of each other, it was the nr. 1 Ferrari of Matteo Bobbi and Gabriele Gardel, itself carrying 80kg of ballast, which claimed pole position, followed by BMS’ sister car in 3rd position and the Care Racing car in 6th.
Out-gunned at the start by the lighter Vitaphone
Saleen of Alzen and Bartels, Bobbi and Gardel nevertheless managed to maintain
second place for most of the three-hour race. Unfortunately, the Care Racing
supported Ferrari 550 Maranello had an engine problem which affected the fuel
consumption so, in two laps, they lost around 20 litres of fuel.
The team tried making a quick ‘splash and dash’ fuel stop, but the car stopped
just at the pit-lane entry and was unable to finish. It was, however,
classified 14th.
The Care Racing entry of Lilian Bryner, Enzo Calderari and Stefano Livio finished in 7th place, with Livio having had a strong run behind the nr.2 car, enabling the trio to keep in contact with the top six.
Fabrizio
Gollin (I), BMS Scuderia Ferrari car no. 2: "This
is the third time in a row that I finish third on this track. In 2002, I lost
the lead on the last lap because of a technical problem and dropped back. Then
last year I came third again. This time, we were lucky because Bobbi and Gardel
had a problem.
"We will now go to Donington with 100 kg ballast. By now, that's almost normal
for us! It's very difficult to do all the races with that much weight, though.
It's causing problems on the tyres and during braking. It will be very difficult
for the brakes in Donington, I think, but we'll see how it goes."
Luca
Cappellari (I), BMS Scuderia Italia car no. 2:
"We had some problems with the brakes, so I tried to go a bit slower to cool
them. The race was very hard on the tyres as well. They were okay during the
first fifteen or twenty laps, but then there was a lot of
understeer.
"In the end, we were very lucky. Now we have to try to score points, because
it's important to stay in front in the Championship. We go to Donington as the
leaders, but when it comes down to it, we want to be leading in Zhuhai, not in
Donington…"
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