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MASERATI ALMOST ON THE PODIUM AT SILVERSTONE
A combination of rule changes and the disqualification of another car enabled Maserati to come within one position of getting onto the podium in the second round of the 2010 FIA GT World Championship, the historic Tourist Trophy event held Silverstone in the UK at the weekend (2 May 2010).
The rule changes saw the Maserati MC12’s allowed to release more of their power, but at the same time a range of weight penalties were applied to the Maseratis relative to their results in round one of the series.
The Maseratis raced hard to gain important rankings points in the Tourist Trophy, but in the end the Aston Martins, running from home base and with the advantage of racing with 50 kg of ballast less than the Maseratis, took the lead.
After the morning's wet warm-up, it stopped raining in the afternoon in Silverstone, for a very high-energy, eventful Championship Race. The excitement began soon after the start of the race. After two laps, Grosjean's Ford Matech no. 5 - winner of the first round in Abu Dhabi - spun around and was forced to leave the race. Then the back right side of Hezemans's Corvette no. 14 caught on fire, prompting the appearance of the safety car on track for almost ten minutes. When the race restarted, the four Maseratis, in the thick of the group, fought curve after curve, engaging in riveting duels with the Corvettes and the Lamborghinis.
The two Triple H Team Hegersport Maserati MC12s were the ones to win the day's headlines with a splendid climb up by Bobbi/Longin on the Maserati no. 34, which moved them up from 14th place at start-off to their final fifth place. The last lap's duel between Mucke/Nygaard's Aston Martin and Longin was hard-fought, but Longin prevailed and defended the position.
The Italian/Belgian pair of drivers was also pitted against their own team-mates Margaritis/Heger, who were on the Maserati no. 33. The latter had started off in the next-to-last row and concluded with a convincing seventh place.
The afternoon proved tougher for the Vitaphone Racing Team. Reigning champions Bertolini/Bartels on the Maserati no. 1 took off from eighth place after a vigorously contested race, made even more difficult by traffic after the pit stop, despite the furious driving of an unrestrained Bartels.
For Bernoldi/Ramos's Maserati no. 2, a good start did not result in a good conclusion as a few problems with the engine slowed it down at first, and then a tire burst, forcing the car to leave the track just a few laps prior to the end of the race.
Following the race,the Stewards at Silverstone disqualified car no. 7, Turner/Enge's Aston Martin, after having found it has a flat bottom against regulations, excluding the car from the race in which it had won the event and lifting the three surviving Maseratis into 4th, 6th and 7th places.
Next round on 23 May at Brno (Czech Republic)
Silverstone
Length of circuit: 5141 m
Temperature
8° C air - 10° C track
Championship Race results
1.Hughes/Campbell - Sumo Power GT - Nissan GT
2. Makowiecki/Accary - Hexis - Aston Martin
3. Menten/Kechele - Reiter - Lamborghini
4.Bobbi/Longin - Triple H Team Hegersport - Maserati MC12 - a 36.010
6. Margaritis/Heger - Triple H Team Hegersport - Maserati MC12 - a 36.922
7. Bartels/Bertolini - Vitaphone Racing Team - Maserati MC12 - a 44.445
DNF: Bernoldi/Ramos - Vitaphone Racing Team - Maserati MC12 –
(ends)
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MaseratiAustralia and New Zealand / E:
Edward Rowe
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Release Number: Maserati_268
Date of release: 10/25/2018 2:37:05 AM