Championship Race
After a pole position (1.42.968) during Sunday warm up with the Ford GT1 Matech n°6, Neel Jani, also racing in Super League Formula, won the Super League race 2 in the afternoon. Richard Westbrook and Thomas Mutsch were in p-5 (1.44.489) during the warm up.
Matech Ford GT1 n°5 took the start of the Championship race from the 5th position on the grid, and from 20th place for the Matech Ford GT1 n°6.
Thomas Mutsch lost one position at the start, but regained 5th in lap 9. Nicolas Prost had a good start, and he crossed the line in 16th but was on the outside of the first corner which was covered in debris following a crash on the first lap and he was unable to hold position. The race was quiet compared to the qualifying race : Thomas stayed 5th during his stint and Nicolas 18th.
The driver change was very fast for both Matech cars and Richard, racing with car n°5, was 3rd when he started his stint. Neel Jani, who had had a very busy weekend, was 15th at the beginning of his stint. As yesterday, the Matech drivers start to rise on the grid. Richard Westbrook was 3rd on lap 18 and then he became 2nd on lap 22… coming from 22nd in the qualifying race!
Very keen to overtake the Maserati, Richard Westbrook gained more than 6 seconds on car n°1 but it wasn’t enough, he finished the race in p-2. Neel Jani also overtook many cars and finished the race in p-12.Matech Competition is really looking forward the next race in Navarra, October 23rd and 24th.
Ford GT1 Matech n°5
Thomas Mutsch : “We had a very good race, I had quite a safe first stint and was just holding my position on used tyres. Then Richard had amazing pace with his new tyres, it was just incredible! I think if we had 5 minutes more we could have come from 22nd place yesterday to the first place today. It was a very good race.”
Richard Westbrook : “I just want to thank the team and my team mate for giving me the car in a perfect situation. I had really good tyres, the car set up was perfect as we worked a lot in the warm up session. Thomas did an absolutely spotless stint and now we have the pace to catch up the Maserati but I guess we lost time in the pit stop which is unusual because that’s where we normally gain time. I don’t know what happened and in the end we needed one or two more laps and I think we could have won.”
