Using Care Racing owned and Prodrive
developed Ferrari 550 Maranellos, BMS Scuderia Italia today proved themselves
worthy champions when, for the second consecutive year, they took the Teams' FIA
GT Championship title, with three rounds of the series still to run.
Fabrizio Gollin and Luca Cappellari consolidated their lead in the fight for the
Drivers' Championship by finishing second in the points, despite carrying 100kg
of ballast, with Care Racing drivers Lilian Bryner, Enzo Calderari and Stefano
Livio taking the third position on the points-scoring podium, also with 100kg.
There were two podium ceremonies after the race as the new non-homologated,
non-points scoring Maseratis took the chequered flag in 2nd and 3rd places
behind the strong-running Saleen of Alzen and Bartels.
Matteo Bobbi and Gabriele Gardel,
themselves carrying 45kg of ballast, had an incident packed race, including a
puncture which subsequently caused considerable bodywork damage to the front
right quarter of the car.
They fought back from this and a stop-go penalty for avoidable contact with the
no. 2 car to take 4th place in the points, taking them to within 16.5 points of
their Italian team-mates, Gollin and Cappellari.
The result once again underlined the reliability and performance of the Care
Racing Ferrari 550s, coming hot on the heels of BMS's success at the 24 Hours of
Spa and the commanding lead currently held by Care's sister cars in the GTS
category of the new Le Mans Endurance Series.
Matteo Bobbi (I), BMS Scuderia Italia car no. 1: "It was very hard for all of us
driving today, very hot. My first stint was aggressive and I was setting good
lap times.
"I caught Gollin and tried to overtake him but we didn't understand each other
as he went on the right side of the track and didn't see me, I then tried to
overtake, and we touched.
"After the stop and go we pushed hard to try and make up some time. It was good
for our Championship that we finished in front of Babbini and Peter, and for the
teams' Championship it was fantastic. I'd like to thank as always Prodrive and
Michelin for providing us with really great cars and tyres."
Gabriele Gardel (CH), BMS Scuderia Italia car no. 1: "It's not that I am unfit,
but there was no air in the car at all. After the puncture, my heart rate was
way too high and I had to stop a bit early.
"It was very unlucky that it happened at the beginning of a lap as it meant I
had to do almost a whole lap before coming in again. The incident with
Cappellari was unfortunate. He braked too early and I had nowhere to go but to
run wide and we almost touched. "
"Luca Cappellari (I), BMS Scuderia
Italia car no. 2: "It was very hard with 100kg ballast, on this track
particularly. We used tyres which were hard as we were looking for the
championship and wanted to score as many points as possible.
