Belgian Racing started its 2008 Season with a two day test in Monza last Thursday and Friday. Despite a difficult opening day, the team had an enriching test. The sun came out for the two day FIA GT test and media days in Monza. The 2008 Competitors got 6 sessions, spread out over two days, to test their machines for the upcoming season.

Among the 25 cars present in Italy also Belgian Racing set to test the new Vertigo. The biggest innovations on the Gillet come from under the bonnet this year. Belgian Racing replaced the old V6 Alfa engine with a brand new V8 Maserati engine, also prepared by Ellegi Motori. The new engine poses challenge for the Gembloux-based outfit.

"The car was build for a V6 engine, now we have 2 additional cylinders," says Renaud Kuppens. "Consequently, we had to adapt a lot of crucial elements such as the exhausts, the air-intake and the radiator. The new engine is a bit lighter than the V6 and more compact. As such, The care will be having the same bonnet as the one of the road car without the hunch in it.

The first day in Monza proved to be a difficult one for Belgian Racing. Due to a problem with the oil and temperature sensors on the new engine Kuppens and Bas Leinders had to sit out the whole two first sessions before taking the track in the third and final session of day 1. On day two Belgian Racing focussed on learning as much as possible about the new engine and how to improve the car to get the maximum out of it. The first race in Silverstone is a bit more than a month away and in the mean time the team will use that time wisely to modify a couple of things we learned in Monza.

"We are going to revise the cooling system of the engine," says Kuppens. "A bigger radiator to improve the cooling of the engine and a better system to extract the hot air out of the engine is what we are going to work on in the next couple of weeks. Before the first race we are going to test once more to validate those changes.

"Also new this year is that Belgian Racing can count on an engineer specialised in aerodynamics. We attached a couple of sensors to the car to learn more about the aerodynamics of the Vertigo.5. We learned quite a bit about the air flow I must say and we are going to make small adjustments which will surely pay off during this season. Our lap times don’t really say much. After all, it is a test and we came here to learn about the car and that is what we did. It is going to be an interesting opening race against the two Moslers in a bit more than a month from now."

“We were at the end of the development with our Alfa Romeo engine and we had some reliability problems last year," says Tony Gillet. "On top of that we were lacking some power compared to our direct opponents (the Mosler MT 900). So, we decided to go for a Maserati engine (to stay in the same big family) in a Group N configuration.”

“I am very satisfied with the new power unit, we have the same amount of horsepower as before but we have more torque than before," says Leinders. "That was exactly what we were lacking last year in order to accelerate properly out of the corners."