The greatest worry for Maserati this weekend involves the heavy ballast assigned to the two cars after their bold double victory at Spa Francorchamps and the second and third places in Romania (above).

Time for the next round of the FIA GT Championship, the fascinating sports event for series-produced GT racing cars. This weekend the race is on in Brno, Czech Republic, the seventh round of this spectacular Championship, thus far dominated by Vitaphone Racing Team’s 12-cylinder Maserati MC12s.

After the gripping Bucharest city challenge, in which Andrea Bertolini and Michael Bartels reinforced their leadership in the championship by arriving third just behind team-mates Miguel Ramos and Alexandre Negraõ, the Bohemian circuit offers the Maseratis a solid opportunity to nab a second success – after the 2007 win obtained through Ramos’s outstanding effort – and move closer still to obtaining both the drivers' and the manufacturers' title. The greatest worry involves the heavy ballast assigned to the two cars after their bold double victory at Spa Francorchamps and the second and third places in Romania.

Andrea Bertolini (Vitaphone Racing Team - Maserati MC12 no. 1) – Championship leader: “The greatest problem has to do with the ballast weighing down our car. In Bucharest Michael Bartels, the Team and I had formulated a strategy that would propel us near the podium to arrive a bit less loaded to Brno —which has a very long track featuring long straight stretches and starts from zero. The race’s conditions and the MC12’s great competitiveness, which proved formidable in the Romanian city circuit despite carrying 105 kilos worth of extra weight, got us on the podium. In Brno we can still do well and defend the advantage we have over our adversaries.”