The Championship Race in the second round of the 2011 GT1 World Championship at Zolder, Belgium closely mirrored the disappointment of the Qualifying Race, with three of the four Nissan GT-Rs on the grid involved in early accidents that forced their retirement. As yesterday, the German pairing of Michael Krumm and Lucas Luhr, in the no. 23 JR Motorsports car, was highest amongst the Nissans, scoring two Championship points in finishing ninth.
The Nissans started 7th (no.23 JRM), 11th (no.21 Sumo Power GT), 12th (no.20 Sumo Power GT) and 16th (no.22 JRM) on the grid respectively after a tough Qualifying Race beset by bad luck and plenty of drama, but both the JRM and Sumo Power GT teams were confident of being able to make up places with a good start in the race. Unfortunately those hopes were to be dashed almost immediately.
As the lights went green for the rolling start, and with the 17 cars on the grid tightly packed together and jostling to gain an advantage, Ricardo Zonta in the no.20 Sumo Power GT came together with the no.47 Corvette, with the resulting impacting causing the Brazilian to hit his team-mate in the no.21 Sumo Power GT, Jamie Campbell-Walter. The two Nissans found themselves side-by-side, with Campbell-Walter pushed hard against the wall of the opening straight, causing enormous damage and instant retirement for both vehicles on lap one.
The next bit of torrid Nissan luck came soon after, on lap five. Peter Dumbreck, doing well to battle his way through the opening lap carnage in the no.22 JRM, was clipped when trying to pass the no.40 Marc VDS Ford GT, causing the Briton to spin on track and be hit by the following no.9 Belgian Racing Ford GT, which was unable to move out of the way in time. Once again, the huge amount of damage to the car meant instant retirement.
That meant that after just seven minutes of the race there was just one Nissan left competing on-track. Lucas Luhr enjoyed a strong drive behind the wheel of the no.23 JRM to find himself right on the tail of the sixth place car as the pit window opened on 25 minutes. A good pitstop was vital if Michael Krumm was to make the most of the strong position his fellow German team-mate had created for the team, but the resulting tyre change was not the smoothest, and valuable time ended up being lost.
The delayed stop saw Krumm rejoining the race in 10th place, and he was to drive incredibly hard for the remainder of the race to try and make up the no.23’s lost time, forcing a mistake from the no.40 Marc VDS in order to pass into ninth place on lap 32, and then getting within milliseconds of the no.41 Ford GT in eighth, although ultimately he wasn’t able to pass.
Speaking afterwards, Lucas Luhr commented: “After the huge incident on the opening straight I was just happy to get to the first corner intact, and then I was able to push on. The car felt really good out there, and I thought we had a pretty good race strategy – with a quick pitstop I really think that we could have been challenging for a top three position, but that unfortunately didn’t happen.
Michael drove a brilliant second half of the race, and pushed the car hard and he came close to getting eighth. but it’s a hard track on which to overtake. Overall we have to focus on the positives, such as the great way the car handled, rather than any negatives, and really take these forward with us to the next race in three weeks’ time.”
Luhr’s JRM team-mate Richard Westbrook, who watched no.22 JRM co-driver Peter Dumbreck being knocked out of the race from the team garage, offered a reflective viewpoint on the day’s events, saying: “These races, and, in Nissan’s case, weekends do happen occasionally, but we learn and move on. The best thing we can do is forget about what happened at Zolder and prepare as best we can for Portimao. We’ll have a point to prove there, and we’ll come out fighting to put our season back on track.”
Round three of the GT1 World Championship will take place at the Portimao circuit in Algarve, Portugal, on the weekend of the 7- 8th May, 2011. Nissan will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s success, when Michael Krumm and Peter Dumbreck, in the no.23 Sumo Power GT, won Saturday’s Qualifying Race.
