FIA GT 2005: STARTING THE SEASON

More professional with GT1 and GT2 cars, but meagre dish

March 17 - Many things let expect that the 2005 FIA GT series will be qualitatively different from the 2004 FIA GT series. Of the regular entrants of last year, more than half are no longer invol-ved. Ray Mallock Limited, having entered two Saleens S7-R for Thomas Erdos/Mike Newton and Miguel Ramos/Chris Goodwin retired. DAMS Racing doesn't return with his two cars after last year's unhappy experience with the Lamborghini Murcielago GT-R. Zwaans GTR Racing Team sold his two Vipers and is definitively out. Wieth Racing, having raced a Ferrari 550 Maranello doesn't return this year. Creation Autosportive comes no back with the Lister Storm of Jamie Campbell-Walter and Jamie Derbyshire. JMB retires its third car, the Ferrari 550 Maranello shared last year by Antoine Gosse and Peter Kutemann. Even BMS Scuderia Italia, having won four of the eleven rounds plus the championship last year, is no longer in with its Prodrive Ferraris 550 Maranello. The loss of those eleven GT-R cars (four Ferraris 550 Maranello, two Saleens S7-R, two Chrysler Vipers, two Lambos and one Lister) is partly compensated by the presence of new teams. Larbre Compétition, having won the 2002 FIA GT series, comes back with two Ferraris 550 Maranello (entered last year with success in the LMES). One will be driven by Gabriele Gardel/Pedro Lamy, the other by Lilian Bryner/Enzo Calderari/Steve Zacchia.Of them Zacchia is new in 2005. New too is the former Cirtek Racing, entering in 2005 a Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranello under the name of Russian Age Racing. Drivers are Nikolaj Formenko and Alexei Vasiliev, last year behind the wheel of a Yukos Porsche 996 GT3. Co-driver is Christophe Bouchut, who quits Larbre Compétition, the team for which he won last year the LMES. New too is GLPK Carsport, entering a Corvette C5-R for Bert Longin (last year on the JMB Ferrari 550M), Anthony Kumpen (last year twice at the wheel of the #28 Saleen) and Mike Hezemans (last year during five rounds behind the wheel of a Ferrari 575GTC).

The fourth new team is Poland's RAM Racing Team with an ex-Konrad Saleen S7-R for Macijei Stanko and Rafal Janus. Philipp Peter, who did last year nine rounds with the GPC Squadra Corsa Ferrari could be the third driver.
So, who are the teams seen last year in competition and returning this year? GPC Squadra Corsa returns with two Ferraris 575GTC, however with other drivers. Andrea Puccini and Jean-Dénis Deletraz, having driven last year for DAMS Racing will drive the first car. Who of Babini, Naspetti or Philipp Peter can drive the second car is still unknown. Graham Nash Motorsport will enter again a Saleen S7-R, but with other drivers. Paolo Ruberti and Joel Camathias were announced as new racers. Patrick Pearce confirmed that Lister Storm will make a full season, with Justin Keen and Liz Halliday as new drivers. Liz will be the second female driver next to Lilian Bryner. Reiter Engineering counts to do all rounds with the black Lamborghini Murcielago having finished last year once at the podium. Peter Kox will be again one of the drivers; Olivier Gavin will be replaced by Norman Simon. JMB Racing, last year unhappy with its two Ferraris 575 GTC switches to the new Maserati MC12. Of last year's drivers only Karl Wendlinger has been confirmed on the first car. Peter Kutemann could be one of the drivers on the second car. The Vitaphone Racing Team is now Bartels Motor & Sport, having replaced its Saleen S7-R by two other Maseratis MC12. Uwe Alzen will probably NOT return to the team. Bartels himself will race the first car and Fabio Babini (last year at GPC Squadra Corsa) will race the second car.

The Greek-German Alexandros Margaritis was announced as a potential driver on one of Bartels' Maseratis, but after his excellent performance at the DTM tests he was offered to do all rounds of the 2005 DTM at the wheel of a Peter Mucke DTM Mercedes. Last but not least Konrad Motorsport returns with last year's Saleen, but racers are still unknown. All this implies that in the main class - now called GT1 as in the French GT Championship, and no longer GT-R - number of regular entrants dropped from 20 to 13. Of the 9 regular Ferraris 550 & 575 GTC only 5 are left (2 by Larbre Compétition, 2 by GPC Squadra Corsa and 1 by Russian Age Racing. Number of Maseratis MC12 increased from 2 to 4 (JMB Racing and Bartels Motor & Sport each 2). Number of Saleens decreased from 4 to 2 (or 3 if Toni Seiler's is confirmed): 1 by Graham Nash Motorsport and 1 by RAM Racing). Number of Lambos decreased from 3 to 1 (Reiter Engineering's). Of the 2 regular and 2 irregular Vipers of last year none (0) is left. The old Belgian Corvette (a C5-R, no C6-R) is the lonely (1) newcomer among the regular entrants. Although the 13 GT1 teams are highly professional, only 2 Ferraris 575GTC, 2 Ferraris 550M (Larbre Compétition) and the 4 Maseratis are candidate winners. The others are rather field fillers. So we are miles away of the old BPR racing with its gentlemen drivers, once the very origin of all FIA GT racing. FIA GT 2005 is all by all a meagre dish, despite the efforts made by organiser Stéphane Ratel.

Eventually we see nothing of the big innovation announced by Stéphane Ratel. Only one car can contribute to curiosity about the FIA GT 2005, the famous Aston Martin DBR9-RS, owned by Frédéric Dor's Prodrive. Two cars will be prepared in view of the Sebring 12 hours and the Le Mans 24 hours. No full program at the 2005 FIA GT could be scheduled by David Richards. Since the DBR9 is a full works car, there is no place for it in the FIA GT Series, except at Silverstone. [But what else are the Lister Storm and the Gruppe M Porsches, them well accepted by Ratel?] To cover the racing costs no less than 32 DBR9s (all 6-litre versions with 600 bhp) will be manufac-tured and sold to clients. It's not impossible thar Cirtek Racing will enter two of them at the ...2006 FIA GT series. Prodrive has a solid repu-tation for the tuning of the Ferrari 550 Mara-nello, being last year obviously more competi-tive than the semi-works Ferrari 575GTC, having disappointed. However, the price of a 550M, tu-ned by Prodrive, is so high that several racers, among them Luc Alphand, decided already since 2002 to stop racing Maranello Ferraris. Perhaps the DBR9 is the car the FIA GT series needs to survive. And winning major races with this car is what Prodrive needs to survive. It's a secret for nobody that the firm has financial problems after so many racing teams stopped racing the 550 Prodrive Maranello, despite the fact that fuel consumption of a Prodrive 550 is lower than that of a factory 575GTC, that power is higher, that bra-kes and suspension are better and that aerody-namics are more performant. That's the reason why Ferrari ordered Jean-Jacques His to develop an Evolution 2 kit for the 575 GTC.

The situation is even more dramatic in what earlier was called N-GT, now GT2. Until 2003 we saw in this class a thrilling combat between the Porsches GT3 and the Ferraris Modena. By allowing Freisinger to enter 996 GT3-RSR Porsches, fully backed up by the factory, Ratel arrived on a situation as last year, where number of N-GT cars per round was ridiculously low. This year Ratel went even one step further in his struggle for frofessionalism. He allowed Porsche to enter full factory cars, the 445 bhp Porsche 996 GT3-RSR (1100 kgs, 8500 rmp), officially entered by Gruppe M Racing. Drivers will be Tim Sugden/Emanuel Collard and Marc Lieb/Mike Rockenfeller. Of them only the last named is new in the FIA GT series. Even before the start of the championship everybody knows that the Gruppe M cars will trust nearly all victories in GT2. Already last year there were only ...six regular entrants in N-GT, among them the three Yukos Porsches GT3 of Freisinger Motorsport. Just as last year's GT-R winner, BMC Scuderia Italia did, last year's N-GT winner doesn't come back to FIA GT racing. Only two teams in GT2 come back, two field fillers: Vonka Racing and Proton Competition, each with one car. For the first time since 2000 there will be no Ferrari 360 Modena at the start, since GPC Squadra Corsa retired from GT2. In that class there are two new entrants: Graham Nash Motorsport with a GT3 Porsche for its mechanic Stephen Stokoe and ACR Bratislava with a similar car for Miroslav Konopka. 

New: Group 2 Cars

The poverty in GT2 is that big, that Ratel had to allow in each round cars not homologated by FIA, such as the Porsches from the Porsche Carrera Cup or cars allowed at national one make series. The last years this was only allowed at the Francorchamps 24 hours, now it will be allowed at all rounds. One already knows that at the Magny Cours round a dozen of British cars will show in Group 2. One of the cars which will enter at least five rounds is the Balfe Motorsport Mosler MT900R which will be shared by Shaun Balfe and ex-Lister driver Jamie Derbyshire.
Despite euphoric articles that the FIA GT series is going new professional ways, one should be blind not to see that the series is in big big troubles. For the first time since the beginning in 1997 none of the champions in both classes returns to the 2005 edition. Among the drivers we lost not only last year champions Luca Capellari, Fabrizio Gollin, Sascha Maasen and Lucas Luhr, but also Stephane Ortelli, Christian Pescatori, Fabrizio de Simone, Matteo Bobbi, Uwe Alzen, Stefano Livio, Jaime Melo, and so many others. Among the new drivers for 2005 thriple former FIA GT champion Christophe Bouchut is the lonely one well known by the broad public. Of all other teams only Aston Martin succeeded to come with such top racers as Pedro Lamy, David Brabham, and Darren Turner. Since Stephane Ortelli is announced as one of the DBR9RS drivers, there is a small chance that we find at least one of the 2004 champions back, be it only at one or two rounds. Poor 2005 FIA GT series. [JPVR]  

FIA GT CHAMP 2005, PREVIEW
MASERATI vs FERRARI
No more Vipers, perhaps Aston Martin DBR9

March 16 - It's too early to make a good preview of the 2005 FIA GT Championship. What, howe-ver, is sure, is that the 2005 edition will be a combat between the Ferraris Maranello and the Maseratis MC12. GPC Squadra Corse will start with two Maranellos 575M. New is Russian Age Racing with a 550M for former FIA GT winner Christophe Bouchut. His former team, Larbre Competition, comes back with two 550M Maranellos. That makes five Maranellos as regular entrants. Opposed to them we find four Maseratis MC12, two by JMB Racing and two by Bartels Motor & Sport. There will be at least three Saleens S7-R and the Belgian Corvette C5R. One Lister is announced, but there are no longer Vipers. It's uncertain if Reiter Engineering will be a regular entrant with the Lamborghini Murcielago. The Aston Martin DBR9 has be announced, but probably only for a limited number of rounds.
In N-GT we find no longer the Ferrari 360 Modena. Only five or six Porsches 996 GT3-RS(R) are scheduled as regular entrants. A Mosler MT900R seems to be the lonely opponent of the factory backed Porsches in N-GT. With only 22 regular entrants the FIA GT Series is slightly under the number of entrants of the previous years. One hopes that, later this year, the Nissans 350 GTR will make their entrance. And what happens with the Lamborghinis of DAMS Racing, much too unreliable last year? We'll know more after the announced test session at Monza on March 22-23.

[JPVR]