Team Rosberg claimed fourth and eighth positions with drivers Nicolas Armindo and César Campanico at the FIA GT3 European Championship finale at Zolder, Belgium. In the final FIA GT3 European Championship driver standings the French-Portuguese driver pair in their Audi R8 LMS occupied third place.
"It could have been more. We still had a shot at winning the title coming into the weekend,” explains Team Manager Peter Reinisch. "However, free practice didn’t run completely trouble free. The drivers drove so hard over the kerbs that the flat bottoms were damaged. Also, Nicolas Armindo had a brake problem Later César Campanico overtook under the yellow flags and was therefore demoted five places on the grid for the first race by the stewards.”
Instead if starting the first race at Zolder from the second row Nicolas Armindo started from ninth place. During the race the pair fought their way up to fourth position. "It goes without saying that being moved down the grid negatively influenced our race. From fourth position on the grid we could have been fighting at the front of the field,” believes Peter Reinisch.
The second Team Rosberg Audi R8 LMS with the Brazilian Paulo Bonifacio and Czech Jiri Navratil had to retire early from the race after Paulo Bonifacio slid into the gravel bed three laps before the finish and was unable to free the car. Paulo Bonifacio finished the second race in the pits in the opening stages due to an electrical problem.
The onset of rain in the second race caused tricky conditions. The teams had to switch from slicks to rain tyres and back to slicks again during the race. "We made the first tyre change during the normal pit stop,” explains Peter Reinisch. "However, after the second change we were given a drive-through penalty because Nicolas Armindo had not turned off the engine. This penalty initially put him out of the points. By the end of the race he had fought his way back up to eighth place.”
"We arrived at Zolder in third place and travelled home in third again. We are not completely satisfied with this result,” commented Peter Reinisch. "Congratulations however go to our Audi brand team mates Christopher Haase and Christopher Mies on a well deserved championship victory in the FIA GT3 European Championship.”
