New AF Corse wins very humid Race 1 in Valencia
Triple win for the F430, with Parente-Cruz 2nd and Giammaria-Toccacelo 3rd
New Autorlando Porsche GT3 takes win in GTS, with Gruber-Deverikos
Alvaro Barba and Pierre Kaffer are the first winners of the 2010 InternationalGT Open, as they imposed their AF Corse Ferrari F430 in the opening round inValencia, in an action-packed race, made more difficult by humid and slipperytrack conditions and the traffic generated by the 43 cars in contention, thenewly-created Spanish-German pair fought a close and lively duel with theAurora Ferrari F430 of the Portuguese pair Alvaro Parente-Francisco CruzMartins. Excellent third was another Ferrari F430, the EdilCris-ran machine ofRaffaele Giammaria-Enrico Toccacelo.
The first Porsche, the Autorlando’s car of Lietz-Roda, was fourth but theGerman make and the Italian team had a great satisfaction, as their new GT3car won the GTS category, with Thomas Gruber and Dimitris Deverikos, beatingthe Ferraris of Couceiro-Frezza and Ortelli-Dayrault.
With the track still very humid but most cars on slicks, problems begin evenbefore the start, with Matthews and Livio spinning in formation lap. PolemanDayrault starts from the pits because of a misinterpretation of the rulesregarding the start procedure. Cortés takes the lead, but the safety car is outbefore completion of lap 1 after a collision between Gerber and Niarchos.At restart, Cortés takes the lead but he will be passed by Barba, Parente andGené in the next laps. Starts then a close duel between the two Alvaros, Barbaand Parente, for the lead, who pass each other a couple of times, in a duelmade even more exciting by lappings. With Gené in fourth, it is Peter,Toccacelo, Deverikos, Wiser, De Castro, Roda and Ceccato, while Narac endshis race in the gravel in lap 5.
While the two leaders take a serious advantage (over 20”) on the pack, Peterpasses the Sunred of Gené for fourth and Roda, Couceiro and Moro open the balof driver changes. After the mandatory stop, Kaffer leads on the AF Ferrari 9seconds ahead of Cruz Martins.
Third is Broniszewski, Giammaria, Guerrero,Amaral, Lietz and Gruber, who leads in GTS with the Autorlando Porsche.The beautiful debut race of the Aston Martin Vantage is ruined when Guerreromakes a slight off-track and then has to serve a drive-through for speeding inthe pit lane, while Giammaria takes third and Lietz fourth, with Broniszewskiexcellent fifth, ahead of the Autorlando Porsche GT3 of Gruber, who wins theGTS class in its debut.
