After a really breathtaking race, Andrea Bertolini and Karl Wendlinger presented JMB Racing, Maserati and Pirelli their first victory in the 2005 FIA GT Championship.

As early on as the meeting's opening laps, JMB Racing’s two Maserati MC12's took the team's Monegasque colours to the top of the time sheets. Qualifying was just as keenly contested under the Magny-Cours sunshine as it was a fortnight earlier under the rain in Monza, and so the top six slots in the qualifying sessions were eventually covered by a margin of less than nine tenths of a second. Bertolini and Wendlinger in the no 15 JMB Maserati MC12 captured second place on the grid, while no 16 car driven by Phillipp Peter, Chris Buncombe and Roman Rusinov won sixth place.

Sunday, blue sky, sunshine and summer temperatures were the backdrop to an excellent start for Andrea Bertolini who took the lead from the first turn and with his third lap he achieved what turned out to be the fastest lap in the race. During the sixteenth lap, Andrea was taken off guard as he was being overtaken by the first batch of backmarkers, and this gave his two closest pursuers the opportunity to infiltrate the line up after executing an audacious manoeuvre at the Adelaide hairpin.

The new leader didn’t have long to savour his exploits as two hours later he was delayed after a collision which led to a flat tyre. Therefore Andrea completed his first stint in second position. Faster than the leading car, Karl Wendlinger tried several times to overtake him, with the cars even touching each other in the 63rd lap. However so as not to compromise the team’s standing, he chose to remain in contact with the race leader until the second round of pit stops.

This was perfectly executed by JMB’s technical crew and allowed Andrea to take the lead after the stop. He then put his efforts into managing this roughly fifteen second lead when the car went into a gravel trap ten minutes before the end of the race and made the final line up anybody’s guess, while this state of affairs boosted spectator pleasure the team was thrown into a state of real incertitude.
 

 In the end, Andrea maintained a margin of less than five seconds at the finish line and thus gave JMB Racing a first victory full of promise for the what’s left of the season, while seventh and therefore similarly in the point standing, the number 16 car has permitted JMB Racing to take second place in the team standings.

Nevertheless, the team felt a bit frustrated by the results, because after Philipp Peter’s excellent first stint he came back fourth, after having contested the presence of the safety car on the track, then an unexpected pit stop for a suspected flat during the Roman Rustiov's stint, all this resulted in the car being demoted. With the good results for the these two first races (A victory, a pole position and a fastest lap), the technical support and the on track support from Maserati and Pirelli and the efficiency of the technical crew, JMB Racing now forms a united, tight outfit which runs like a well oiled machine, these are all assets which will allow the team to serenely look forward to the next leg of the championship.

The next FIA GT Championship meeting is on May 15 at Silverstone where performance and consistency will team up to do battle with an field of competitors who are equally determined to meet the victory challenge.

GT1 Teams Championship: 1- Vitaphone (28 pts); 2- JMB (21 pts); 3- Larbre (20 pts); GT1 Drivers Championship: 1-Barthels / Scheider (16 pts); 3- Lamy / Gardel / Wendlinger / Bertolini (14 pts); GT1 Manufacturers Cup: 1- Maserati (49 pts); 2- Ferrari (21 pts); 3- Corvette (5 pts)