italiaspeed.com: Maserati Reparto Corse

At the end of a gripping, tough ninth round of the 2005 FIA GT Championship race at Zuhai in China, Maserati took the Teams' Championship to add to the Manufacturers’ Cup. The Vitaphone Racing Team has a strong lead and is only five points off making mathematically certain of the title with two races left. JMB Racing is next in the overall standings and so it will surely be a Trident team that claims the title.

On the Chinese Zhuhai track where they scored a superb one-two last year, the MC12s managed to secure a fine result in making the podium despite carrying an extra 40kg of weight. This meant that the number 10 and 15 cars raced with 150kg of ballast. The number 9 car lined up with ten less. This was the car that took third with Michael Bartels and Timo Scheider on board. They edged out their sister car driven by Fabio Babini and Thomas Biagi. Andrea Bertolini and Karl Wendlinger came home sixth. They lost a place after a final refuelling stop in the closing stages. They still lead the Drivers' standings though and are four points clear of Bartels and Scheider. Fourth on 59 are Babini and Biagi with Gabriele Gardel on 60 points, at the wheel of a Larbre Competition 550 just ahead of them. Two races from the end the championship is still wide open.

It is obvious that the ballast helped Gardel's cause. He halved the gap that separated him from the Maserati drivers before the trip to China. The outcome of the race was uncertain right to the end with fast Corvettes and Ferrari 550 Maranellos hounded by the Ferrari 575 GTC and the weighed down MC12s. After three laps Bouchut's pole placed Aston Martin left the scene after running across some oil left on the track. Lamy's Ferrari 550 and a Porsche GT2 also succumbed at the same spot. The intervention of the safety car allowed the three to return to the track. Bouchut still had to pull up shortly afterwards. Lamy, on the other hand, mounted a comeback that saw him on the tail of the leading cars after around twenty laps.

The race order up front often changed as the strategy of the teams played out. Even team Vitaphone led for a spell. Going for victory would have been impossible but the two MC12s from the German team based their race on a three stop strategy. They switched tyres just once in order to save time. The elevated consumption of fuel caused by the added weight ruled out making just two stops. The plan paid off, thanks to the fine performing Pirelli tyres that coped with two successive stints with extra weight.

On the Chinese Zhuhai track where they scored a one-two last year, the MC12s managed to secure a fine result in making the podium despite carrying an extra 40kg of weight