The Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT continued to show its performance potential this weekend in the Magny-Cours round of the FIA GT Championship, recording third quickest time in second practice and running in the top ten on all three days.

Transmission problems in the closing stages of the three- hour race forced the R-GT to retire whilst lying in eighth and closing on seventh place. Regular driver pairing Peter Kox and Norman Simon returned to the Magny-Cours track for the second round of the championship and were quickly on the pace, recording eighth fastest time in first practice and third in the second session. This strong performance continued into qualifying, with the Lamborghini R-GT starting seventh on the grid after the two sessions.

Kox started the race, setting out with a strategy to run conservatively and not to push until later in the race, but as the race progressed he started to suffer gear selection problems caused by an overheating gearbox. Simon took over in the hot seat and maintained the strong race pace established by the Dutchman, but also had to battle with the gear selection problem. When Kox returned to the cockpit the Reiter Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT was lying in ninth and in touch with rivals ahead.
 

Kox took over eighth spot and was pushing for seventh when the car lost drive and he was forced to retire. Kox commented after the race saying, "It was a reasonably good weekend, although not the result we wanted. The car had good race pace and was very competitive, so it was disappointing that we had the gear change problem which ultimately put us out of the race. We're proving the car can compete at the front, but we need to keep developing it to give us the results we want."

Team Boss Hans Reiter was encouraged by the performance of the Lamborghini R-GT this weekend saying, "We started the weekend well running no lower than eighth in all sessions, so I'm pleased with this, especially as we were running on old tyres. In the race though, our fortunes changed and we had gearbox problems which was very difficult for the drivers and cost us quite a few seconds each lap."

"But we must keep looking forward. Our priority now is to focus on long-distance testing, in a high temperature climate, so that we can iron out the problems that this combination is causing us. The cockpit temperature is also a concern, so we'll be looking at this too."

Reiter Engineering develops, builds and sells the R-GT from its base in Kirchanschöring, Germany, and provides ongoing customer support, technical advice and parts supply to buyers of the cars.