italiaspeed.com

After a difficult day of qualifying, the Care Racing supported Ferrari 550 Maranellos will line up on the fourth and fifth rows of the grid for the seventh round of the 2005 FIA GT Championship in Oschersleben, Germany, tomorrow. Both of their Ferrari-running teams reported understeer around the tight, twisting circuit which is situated west of Magdeburg, and are anticipating a difficult race in the tight confines of the track.

The Russian Age Racing Ferrari 550 Maranello driven by Christophe Bouchut, Nikolay Fomenko and Alexey Vasiliev was the faster of the two Ferraris, Bouchut setting a time of 1m 24.095s, a little over a second shy of the pole-sitting Maserati MC 12 of German drivers' Michael Bartels and Timo Scheider.

The team tried a softer set-up during the morning, the quicker of the two qualifying sessions on a warm, sunny day, but reverted to a harder set up in the afternoon. "The harder set-up was the better of the two, and we will be running that during the race," said team manager Rob Schirle.

"We do not have enough downforce and we are losing a lot of time," said Bouchut. "The set-up was not very good this morning and we had a lot of understeer. My best lap was spoiled when I was blocked by one of the Maseratis and I lost maybe three or four tenths of a second. I think we could have been sixth, but that will make very little difference during the race."

Pedro Lamy set 9th fastest time overall in the Larbre Compétition Ferrari, which he will share with Swiss Gabriele Gardel. The Portuguese driver's best time was 1m 24.362s, though the team expects tyres to play a major part in tomorrow's race. "The car is not perfect and we are off the pace," said Lamy. "We don't know the reason why we are slower than the others, but I think we are on a harder compound of tyre. They are better in qualifying, but we will have to see over the long distance. We are carrying 70kg of ballast this weekend, but some of those ahead are carrying more!