Total Control Racing’s Fulvio Mussi capped off an outstanding weekend in the 2009 Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup at Knockhill Circuit in Scotland, Sunday, 16th August, with two more podium results after a pair of excellent drives in rounds 19 and 20 of the season.
Having secured his first visit to the rostrum of the year during round 18 on Saturday, the Essex racer continued to impress earlier today by finishing third, and taking the fastest race lap, in the opening encounter and then backing the result up with a second place finish in round 20 for the Wednesbury based squad.
Climbing into the top four in the championship standings, Mussi is really beginning to show the pace he is capable of in Ginetta G50 and with three events still remaining this season he still has time to achieve that coveted maiden victory.
“My main aim was to come to Knockhill, qualify at the front, and take three podiums which we’ve done so I’m really happy”, commented the yourracingcar.com backed driver, “The car was fantastic thanks to the guys at TCR, it’s been a superb weekend and hopefully it’s the start of a very strong finish to the year for us.”
At the beginning of round 19,which took place on a wet and slippery track, Mussi was passed off the line by a fast-starting Tom Sharp but the TCR driver got back ahead at Scotsman to reclaim his third position. Breeze, meanwhile, ran in fifth place with Ritter up to sixth after a great opening lap.
Running lap times comparative to those posted by team-mate Breeze and Sharp, Ritter ran in close company early on but two unlucky spins later in the race compromised his potential. The second of the moments for Ritter on lap 19 forced him into retirement at the hairpin.
Mussi pressurised second placed Frank Wrathall during the last few laps but he wasn’t able to quite make a move and so finished in third place, a mere four 10ths of a second adrift at the chequered flag. Breeze came home just a couple of seconds further back in fourth position.
In round 20, Ritter fared much better as he came through to record a fine top six finish to make amends for the earlier non-finish. Unfortunately slipping to 11th position in the championship standings behind Julien Draper, the Dane is, nonetheless, only three points adrift of the top 10.
At the start, Mussi got away well from second on the grid but wasn’t quite able to edge ahead of Freke while Breeze held fifth position and Ritter battled Draper for seventh. Mussi dropped to third at the hairpin on lap one while attempting to make a move and he remained there comfortably until Freke made a mistake at the chicane and spun out of the lead.
This gave Mussi the opportunity to move ahead into second which he did and Breeze – who did have some straight-line speed issues with his car all weekend – grabbed third position ahead of the recovering Freke. The drive Ritter produced to finish in sixth underlined his continued progress.
Commenting on the day, TCR’s Lee Brookes said: “Fulvio has had a cracking weekend, we’re really happy for him and it’s just a shame he couldn’t get a win in one of the races as he definitely had the pace to do that this weekend. Some things went on which were out of his control but he did an excellent job.
“We think we’ve got some gremlins in Carl’s car that are affecting his speed so we need to look at that to cure it and make sure he’s back on top at the next round. Joachim pushed a little bit too hard on a couple of occasions but he had a very solid weekend all in all. Overall it’s been a pretty good team performance at Knockhill.”
Silverstone National Circuit in Northamptonshire is the next venue on the 2009 race calendar with rounds 21 and 22 of the Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup, and the rescheduled 11th round of the season, taking place over the weekend 29th/30th August. The event will also see the return of the ELF Renault Clio Cup to the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship race package for rounds 15 and 16.
Provisional 2009 Michelin Ginetta G50 Cup Standings (after Rd20 – Rd11 yet to be rescheduled):Drivers: 2nd Carl Breeze, 494pts; 4th Fulvio Mussi, 328pts; 11th Joachim Ritter, 204ptsTeams: 1st Total Control Racing
