Dunlop Motorsport left the ninth round of the FIA GT Championship at the German circuit of Oschersleben delighted with the performance of their intermediate and slick tyres as Chris Goodwin and Jose Pedro Fontes finished fourth overall on the track RML Saleen S7R and were classed second in the GT class.
The two drivers ran consistently as high as third overall by two-thirds distance having coped with a wet track early on, but dropped to fourth place in the final hour. However, with the Maserati not yet homologated and therefore ineligible for points, Goodwin and Fontes were promoted to third in class. That became second when Karl Wendlinger was held accountable for an incident and penalised 50 seconds, which further elevated the Dunlop car to second in class.
The race started wet, and Paulo Ruberti was the first to show well in the Graham Nash Motorsport Saleen S7R. The Italian ran second on his intermediate tyres before the circuit dried sufficiently for a change to slicks. Ruberti and German Wolfgang Kaufmann fought back up to fifth as the others pitted, but the cudgels for the podium were taken up by Goodwin in the RML car.
The Briton was having a fantastic run to be second by lap 60, and with Fontes aboard, the car ran second before its final stop. Goodwin re-joined fifth, but gained another place as the others stopped in the final hour.
“I made up a lot of time in the early stages on the Dunlop intermediates,” said Goodwin. “I passed a few cars at the start, and Johnny Herbert was the last car that I passed in the Maserati. I pulled up to [my team-mate] Tommy Erdos but he dropped a wheel in the dirt and covered my windscreen in mud so I couldn’t see anything!”
Dunlop manager Graham Shuter commented: “Once again we showed that the Dunlop tyre is competitive in this championship. It was a very good performance with both the intermediate tyres, and the slick tyres on a wet track as used by the Zwaans team. This is a very twisty circuit on which tyre choice is critical and we showed that we had the strength in our tyres to run in a podium position.”
A sparkling drive from the GNM Saleen was halted just ten minutes from the end of the race when Jamie Wall parked his Saleen while running 12th overall. The Zwaans Viper of Val Hillebrand, Henrik Roos and Robert van der Zwaan, finished16th overall.
The next round of the FIA GT Championship is in Dubai on Friday, October 8.
