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5th May 2002:  FIA European Touring Car Championship,  England ( Silverstone ), Round 3 & 4

- two exciting races see honours even as Nicola Larini and Fabrizio Giovanardi grab a win and a second place apiece, the superior power of the Alfa's fending off the stiff Volvo and BMW opposition at the ultra fast Silverstone circuit

race 2

After the hectic battles of race 1, must drama was expected as the top six were reversed for the start of race two and the spectators were not to be disappointed. As they powered away from the grid, the BMW of Jorg Muller was punted in the rear by the AGS Motorsport Alfa of Paolo Ruberti, dropping the BMW driver to tenth place, from which he never became a factor in the race again.

The other wide bodied BMW of Dirk Muller, starting second on the grid, took the lead, closely followed by Rydell, who had capitalised on the incident and Fabrizio Giovanardi. With the field bunched up, Muller was struggling to keep the Volvo at bay, and as Rydell became incresingly frustrated, an attempted move on the BMW man allowed Giovanardi to lunge past the Volvo, for which the Alfa driver received a caution.

With the Alfa's power down the fast straights of Silverstone making them the quickest cars on the track, Giovanardi found his way past Muller with four laps to go, while Larini had squeezed out the Volvo to keep his team mate in view. Larini took Muller for second, but was unable to close the two and a half second gap to his team mate, and the works Alfas finished race 2 in reverse order of race 1, despite Giovanardi suffering gear selection problems in the closing couple of laps. Meanwhile a titanic battle between Muller and Rydell which had the crowd on their feet, was resolved in the Volvo drivers favour after Rydell made a hugely brave run round the outside of the wide bodied BMW into turn one, through the gravel trap, but hung onto the racing line into turn two.

race 2 result:
1 1 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Fabrizio GIOVANARDI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:35.188
2 2 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Nicola LARINI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:35.606 0.418
3 60 Volvo S60 Racing Team Rickard RYDELL SWE Volvo S60 10 20:39.877 4.689
4 43 BMW Team Deutschland Dirk MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 10 20:40.459 5.271
5 14 AGS MotorSport Paolo RUBERTI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:44.909 9.721
6 10 BMW Team Belgium Fredrik EKBLOM SWE BMW 320i E46 10 20:45.588 10.400
7 15 Scuderia Bigazzi Luis VILLAMIL ESP Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:46.418 11.230
8 42 BMW Team Deutschland Jörg MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 10 20:46.846 11.658
9 6 BMW Team Spain Fabrizio DE SIMONE ITA BMW 320i E46 10 20:58.352 23.164
10 18 CIBIEmme Team Salvatore TAVANO ITA Honda Civic Type-R 10 21:20.571 45.383
11 3 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Romana BERNARDONI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 9 21:06.971
12 16 Scuderia Bigazzi Eric CAYROLLE FRA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 8 17:04.139
DNS 20 DART Racing IP Tom Ferrier GBR Alfa Romeo 156GTA 0

race 1

Nicola Larini took a rather fortunate win in the meeting's opening race, when race leader Fabrizio Giovanardi made a mistake on the final lap, to allow the suprised Larini to leapfrog him and second place Jorg Muller into a lead he held to the flag.

After dominating the practice sessions, the Nordauto Alfa Romeo drivers, Nicola Larini and Fabrizio Giovanardi lined up on the front row of the grid. However Rickard Rydell, in the rapidly improving Prodrive-run Volvo S60, with several years of experience around the Silverstone track from his days competing in the British Touring Car Championship, jumped the Alfa drivers down the inside at the lights and lead out of the first bend, followed by Jorg Muller's latest-spec BMW, Giovanardi salvaging third, Dirk Muller in the other BMW fourth and the poor starting Larini being bumped to fifth.

Tom Ferrier in the DART Alfa 156GTA was pushed in the rear going into Club Corner for the first time, as he spun accross the track he was hit by the BMWs of Marc Gene and Peter Kox, resulting in the instant retirement of all three cars. Eric Cayrolle in the Bigazzi 156GTA, meanwhile had leapt up from the rear of the grid, passing Gianni Morbidelli for eigtht place on lap 2.

Rydell opened out an early lead, while fastest man on the track, Fabrizio Giovanardi squeezed out Jorg Muller for second and the recovering Nicola Larini took Dirk Muller's BMW for fourth.

Giovanardi pressurised the race leading Volvo until he forced Rydell into a costly mistake, missing a gear saw Rydell demoted to fifth as the the Alfa's and BMW's dived through.

With the race almost in the bag, Giovanardi made a mistake on lap 8, the tightly following Jorg Muller was unable to capitalise, and Larini dived past them both to claim an unexpected victory. Giovanardi held off Jorg Muller for second, while Rydell who had got past the other BMW took fourth place. Eric Cayrolle, meanwhile had climbed to 6th and was climbing all over the back of Paolo Ruberti in the final laps, but was unable to final a way past the AGS car.

race 1 result:
1 2 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Nicola LARINI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:43.162   148.846
2 1 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Fabrizio GIOVANARDI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:44.421 1.259 148.695
3 42 BMW Team Deutschland Jörg MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 10 20:45.645 2.483 148.549
4 60 Volvo S60 Racing Team Rickard RYDELL SWE Volvo S60 10 20:45.851 2.689 148.524
5 43 BMW Team Deutschland Dirk MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 10 20:46.497 3.335 148.448
6 14 AGS MotorSport Paolo RUBERTI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:54.492 11.330 147.501
7 16 Scuderia Bigazzi Eric CAYROLLE FRA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:54.736 11.574 147.473
8 7 Carly Motors - Team Isert Tom CORONEL NED BMW 320i E46 10 20:57.576 14.414 147.140
9 15 Scuderia Bigazzi Luis VILLAMIL ESP Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 20:59.448 16.286 146.921
10 10 BMW Team Belgium Fredrik EKBLOM SWE BMW 320i E46 10 21:02.213 19.051 146.599
11 11 RJN Motorsport Tommy RUSTAD NOR Nissan Primera 10 21:04.625 21.463 146.320
12 6 BMW Team Spain Fabrizio DE SIMONE ITA BMW 320i E46 10 21:08.225 25.063 145.904
13 18 CIBIEmme Team Salvatore TAVANO ITA Honda Civic Type-R 10 21:36.146 52.984 142.761
14 3 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Romana BERNARDONI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 10 21:41.455 58.293 142.179
R 20 DART Racing IP Tom FERRIER GBR Alfa Romeo 156GTA 0 Laps

qualifying

Practice opened with cold and overcast conditions, twenty one cars taking to the track. Nicola Larini, fastest in the free practice session immediately set the benchmark and it looked that the Alfa's straight line superiority would serve them well at the ultra-fast Silverstone track.

The Alfa drivers pressed hard, Giovanardi and Larini swapping times until a blistering lap of 2:00.153 by the former mid session proved unmatchable and Giovanardi claimed pole with Larini lining up outside him. Behind them Rickard Rydell put the Prodrive Volvo S60 onto the second row of the grid, delighted that he had got the undeveloped car ahead of the BMWs, and optomistic that with his Silverstone experience he could threaten the works Alfa's in the race. Jorg Muller was fastest of the BMW runners, with Peter Kox, Dirk Muller and Fredrick Ekblom in similar wide bodied 320i's lining up behind hime.

Of the other Alfa Romeo runners, Tom Ferrier, newly confirmed as an official Alfa Romeo UK backed driver, lined up his DART run 156GTA on the outside of the second row, Paolo Ruberti squeezed the AGS Motorsport car into the top ten while Romana Bernadoni qualified the third Nordauto works car in 13th place, one ahead of Luis Villamill in the fastest of the Bigazzi Alfa's.

grid:
1 1 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Fabrizio GIOVANARDI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:00.153
2 2 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Nicola LARINI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:00.349
3 60 Volvo S60 Racing Team Rickard RYDELL SWE Volvo S60 2:00.693
4 20 Dart Racing IP Tom FERRIER GBR Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:01.150
5 42 BMW Team Deutschland Jörg MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 2:01.198
6 9 Carly Motors - Team Isert Peter KOX NED BMW 320i E46 2:01.265
7 43 BMW Team Deutschland Dirk MÜLLER GER BMW 320i E46 2:01.271
8 10 BMW Team Belgium Fredrik EKBLOM SWE BMW 320i E46 2:01.424
9 14 AGS MotorSport Paolo RUBERTI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:01.708
10 7 Carly Motors - Team Isert Tom CORONEL NED BMW 320i E46 2:01.829
11 11 RJN Motorsport Tommy RUSTAD NOR Nissan Primera 2:01.958
12 15 Scuderia Bigazzi Luis VILLAMIL ESP Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:02.249
13 3 GTA Racing Team Nordauto Romana BERNARDONI ITA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:02.412
14 5 BMW Team Spain Jordi GENE ESP BMW 320i E46 2:02.540
15 61 Volvo S60 Racing Team James HANSON GBR Volvo S60 2:02.574
16 6 BMW Team Spain Fabrizio DE SIMONE ITA BMW 320i E46 2:02.959
17 8 Carly Motors - Team Isert Gianni MORBIDELLI ITA BMW 320i E46 2:03.029
18 16 Scuderia Bigazzi Eric CAYROLLE FRA Alfa Romeo 156GTA 2:03.136
19 18 CIBIEmme Team Salvatore TAVANO ITA Honda Civic Type-R 2:05.168

the Alfa Romeos competing in this years European Touring Car Championship line up together. At the front are the Nordauto cars for Fabrizio Giovanardi, Nicola Larini and Romana Bernadoni. Behind them are the privately entered cars from DART Racing, Bigazzi and AGS
championship positions  after 4 rounds:

drivers:
1st Fabrizio Giovanardi 36pts, 2nd Nicola Larini 28pts, 3rd Rickard Rydell 13pts, 4th Dirk Muller 10pts, 5th Jorg Muller 8pts, 6th= Frederik Ekblom, Paolo Ruberti 3pts
teams:
1st Team Nordauto Alfa Romeo 64pts, 2nd BMW Team Deutchland 18pts, 3rd Volvo S60 Racing 16pts, =4th AGS Motorsport, BMW Team Belgium 3pts

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