MICHAEL-BARTELS-ANDREA-BERTOLINI-MASERATI-MC12-N°1-TEAM-VITAPHONE-RACING Image -FRANCOIS FLAMAND / DPPI

Reigning FIA GT Champions Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini scored their first Championship Race win at Paul Ricard.  With two Qualifying Race wins to their credit, the Vitaphone Racing Team drivers were very happy to record their first FIA GT1 World Championship victory in the Maserati MC12 and the 25-points for the win, propel them into the Championship lead, 15 points ahead of Romain Grosjean and Thomas Mutsch who finished 7th in the nr5 Matech Competition Ford GT Matech. Peter Kox in the nr24 Reiter Lamborghini got the best start from the front row to take the lead at Turn 1 but was judged to have jumped the start and had to serve a drive through penalty.

The challenge to the leading Maserati was taken up by the nr13 Phoenix Racing/ Carsport Corvette of Andrea Piccini and the nr2 Vitaphone Maserati of Enrique Bernoldi.  A clash at the last corner between Bernoldi and Piccini left the nr2 Maserati at the side of the track with broken suspension, with the Corvette having to serve a stop go penalty for the challenge towards the end of the race.

After the pitstops Michael Bartels held a large lead over the rest of the field. The nr23 Sumo Power GT Nissan GT-R of Peter Dumbreck was clearly the fastest car on track and was soon in second place ahead of the nr33 Triple H Team Hegersport Maserati MC12 of Alex Margaritis, who was coming under pressure from the nr40 Marc VDS Racing Team Ford GT Matech of Maxime Martin.  The last lap saw a determined effort by Martin to secure the final podium position but Margaritis held on to secure his, and teammate Altfrid Heger, first GT1 World podium finish.

Andrea-Bertolini - PHOTO : FRANCOIS FLAMAND / DPPI

Andrea Bertolini
nr1 Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC12 – 1st Place
“The start was like me in Brno. We did our normal start. Okay, we lost a position against the Nissan, but fortunately, after two laps, I overtook the car before the last couple of corners. That was good because when I overtook the Nissan, the race was different. I was free and I did my laptime free. This was also good for the front tyres, because if I was stuck behind another car, I’d lose because of the down force, and we have a lot of understeer. Everything was perfect. Even for car nr2. And after I saw in my mirror that it had a crash with Piccini, I don’t know what happened. But Piccini also tried to overtake me, in corner 15, which is impossible. But it’s not my problem. We’ve scored points, 25 points, and it was good. It’s good because we never score enough points on Sunday for our idea. Now we’re here finally. It’s more important than a normal victory. The team was perfect again. The pit was really quick. I think we did it in 26 seconds. This is a key one for this championship, because you can see we’re really close. We have really good fighting with all the cars. But when you’re in the first 2 or 3 rows and race against the professional drivers, it’s good. It’s much worse when you start from the back, because for some people, their helmet is too tight or it’s too warm in the car.”

Michael Bartels
nr1 Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC12 – 1st Place
“I think my stint looked easy, but the conditions out there were quite difficult. I think this is the 5th or 6th time I’ve had a race under these conditions in all my racing life, because Bucharest was similar in 2008. We had a good pitstop. The guys did a great job. I was concentrating to have a quick out lap, because I knew the Corvette was close behind, and I had to push immediately to get a second or two in front, and it all worked well. At the end of my stint I was really taking care of the tyres, because we knew that at the end, with this asphalt temperature, the tyres are really working on the limit. I think this is also an incredibly good sign for the Michelin people to have tyres working at this performance on these performing cars, and the quality of tyres is really incredibly high. Until the end, everything worked fine. Of course, in the last 2 laps, you’re trying to bring it home. But before I was never sure how long my tyres would last, the Corvette was doing the same speed, I could see it in the gap, but it’s a great day, a great victory. I’m happy to have also this year, in the new era of GT1 championship a victory in my pocket; it feels fantastic. But there is still a long season if you calculate how many points there are to score still, around 200 or something. We’re still far away. These points mean nothing so far, and I think the championship will remain open until the last two races.

Sumo Power Nissan team in action at Paul Ricard

Michael Krumm
Nr23 Sumo Power GT Nissan GT-R – 2nd Place
“It was a traumatic day for us yesterday. We qualified in P3, we were competitive. And then we had a huge disappointment in the qualifying race. We dropped back. We used  old tyres from free practice in the stint, and we knew it was going to be tough. Unfortunately, a collision caused us to lose the front splitter, and front downforce. Yesterday we didn’t know how much this affected us, but today we knew it affected us a lot and we kept going back until we ended up in P9. We didn’t know until we started the race if the car was really back on performance or not. I felt after  a few laps that immediately the car was back where it was and the Nissan ran really fantastically the whole weekend, except yesterday afternoon. So I was really glad. Now to start from P9 is a really risky thing to drive there in the back. I saw there was a lot of chaos going on, people diving and hitting each other. I just had to bring the car to Peter somehow. We had 2 new sets of tyres today, so it was important to bring it back without damage. Taking it back step by step, and not getting involved in any crazy stuff, I got to P4 or something, and that was a big turnaround for us. I’m really glad for the team and for Nissan for that fantastic result.”

Peter Dumbreck
Nr23 Sumo Power GT Nissan GT-R – 2nd Place
“When you run the tyres in free practice, we used set 1 from the weekend, when you get to 15 laps on them, on our car, others not so much. That’s why we took the hit yesterday. We were in a fortunate position to stay out of trouble. I could just do more laps, and I felt like a racing driver again. Yesterday I felt terrible with the handling of the car, and I knew I was causing a bottle neck with the cars behind, and I’m thankful I didn’t just get rammed off the circuit. I think today’s result is a great one for the team, for Nismo. An unfortunate one for car 22. We’ll both live to fight another day.”

ALTFRID HEGER ALEXANDER MARGARITIS MASERATI MC12 N°33 TEAM TRIPLE H HEGERSPORT

Altfrid Heger
Nr33 Triple H Team Hegersport Maserati MC12 – 3rd Place
“I’m very happy. After I finished professional racing 10 years ago, it was my hope and my wish to come on the podium this year. Of course, you have to be lucky. But you also need a really good car, a good team. I followed the order of Maserati. I slept really well last night, and so I was really relaxed during the start. This was maybe why nothing happened. I think everyone was really fair. We didn’t have much space, but space enough to survive. I would like to explain what I mean when I followed the order of Maserati. Maurizio asked me to stay ahead of the nr5 at the start, I did; my engineer told me please finish on the podium, we did. I must say, Alex and me were working really great together this weekend. I’m really happy with our result.”

Alexander Margaritis
Nr33 Triple H Team Hegersport Maserati MC12 – 3rd Place
“The last couple of laps were very hard for us. Like the others, we had problems with the tyres, had a lot of oversteering. I started with the nr40 Ford coming closer and closer, gaining 4 tenths a lap, the lights in my rear view mirrors. I tried to push, but not to over push the rear tyres, because I know that if they went off once, I would be in the worse situation. I tried to keep my head down, switch the rearview mirror off. In the last laps, Grosjean went off, and I had a fight with him. I’m happy that he also blocked the nr40 car a bit, so I was a bit more free at the rear. The last lap was really long, the longest in the last year. I’m happy to be on the podium with my team mate Altfrid. We’ve been working together a long time. I think this weekend has been a race more or less without mistakes.”