in Portimão GT1 Championship Race
Nissan’s historic success in the GT1 World Championship Qualifying Race in Portimão was followed up by further domination in today’s Championship Race, as the German pairing of Lucas Luhr and Michael Krumm claimed victory in the no.23 JR Motorsports, and Jamie Campbell-Walter and David Brabham, in the no.21 Sumo Power GT, secured an excellent third place.
The leading three Nissan GT-Rs started the race first, second and third on the grid – the first such placing by a single manufacturer since the GT1 series’ formation – and it was the no.22 JR Motorsports driven by Richard Westbrook that emerged from the opening corner maintaining its first place starting position.
The experienced Briton was to soon make his fresh tyres count, establishing an 8.5 seconds lead over Luhr’s second placed no.23 JRM by the 25 minute mark, whilst Campbell-Walter, suffering from excessive tyre pressure which affected the grip and handling of his car, drove expertly to hold off the strong advances of the no.8 Aston Martin challenging for third. Further back, Enrique Bernoldi – in the no.20 Sumo Power GT that started from 13th following a five place grid penalty held over from the Zolder Championship Race – raced strongly to move as high as eighth place in the field as the pit window opened.
With all the mandatory driver and tyre changes complete, the no.22 and 23 JRMs found themselves retaining first and second place respectively, whilst both of the Sumo Power cars lost a place each to emerge in fourth (no.21) and ninth (no.20). Perhaps most significantly of all though, the Germans’ pitstop was several seconds faster than that of their JRM team-mates, meaning that the no.23 rejoined the race just over a second behind the no.22.
It wasn’t to be long before the no.23, piloted now by Michael Krumm, managed to overtake Peter Dumbreck’s no.22, which had developed a suspected transmission problem seemingly out of nowhere, and the Briton was to be dealt an even more severe blow only moments later, as the same problem forced his retirement on lap 27.
That, unfortunately, left only three Nissans in the race, with Brabham’s no.21 Sumo Power GT moving up into third due to Dumbreck’s misfortune, and Ricardo Zonta’s no.20 Sumo Power up into eighth. Despite the best efforts of Brabham and Zonta to challenge the cars in front of them, this is how the race was to finish, although the no.20 was to later benefit from a 30 second penalty incurred by the car ahead after the race to move up into seventh.
Speaking afterwards, a delighted Lucas Luhr said: “Obviously I’m very happy. I was a bit nervous about us all getting through the first corner OK, but it worked out well today. I had a good start and I was side-by-side with Richard but I couldn’t do him in the first corner so I backed off. He seemed to be struggling a little bit to warm up his fresh tyres in the first one and a half laps, but then he pulled away. I just tried to build a gap to the guys behind me and stay close to Richard.
“Our boys did a great job at the pit stop which allowed Michael to come out of the pits just one and half seconds behind Peter. Obviously our sister car had a problem at the end, but that’s the way racing is: sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are unlucky. With the 1-2-3 yesterday, it has been a great weekend for Nissan.”
Lucas’ team-mate in the no.23 JRM, Michael Krumm, added: “Today the conditions were very much hotter than yesterday, so it was difficult for everyone to protect the tyres for the whole stint. I was sitting close to Peter and I thought it was going to be a really long battle to the end. I backed off a little and thought I would cool it and wait for the last 10 minutes when the tyres had dropped off more to have a better chance of taking the lead.
“Then, without warning going up the hill, he just slowed down suddenly and I almost ran into him. Of course I was relieved that I didn’t have to battle with a team-mate because we don’t want to crash into each other, but it was a shame because they won yesterday and they deserved to win today as much as we did.”
Jamie-Campbell Walter commented: “It was nice to get through the first corner all nice and clean after the last few races we’ve had. Unfortunately our tyre pressures went way too high from a very early stage so the no.8 Aston Martin was able to really push me. I had to work very hard to drive as smoothly as possible and not to over-work the car because the pressures were going up and up: luckily I managed to hold the position until the pit stop, and David did a great job in the second half of the race. It’s a fantastic result for Sumo Power after what happened in Zolder.”
Round four of the GT1 World Championship will take place at the Sachsenring circuit in Germany next weekend - the 14th - 15th May, 2011.
