FIA GT1 World Championship
Navarra (ESP), October 22nd-24th, 2010
The teams met in Navarra, Spain for the eighth and last European FIA GT1 race. The track was new to all pilots because construction was only just finished in 2010. Swiss Racing Team competes with two NISSAN GT-R’s in the world championship, with driver duos Wendlinger (AUT)/Moser (CHE) with starting number 3 and Ara (JPN)/Nilsson (SWE) with starting number 4.
The team knew before travelling to the new circuit that is was not very well suited for the NISSAN GT-R’s because it has many slow turns and short straights. Teammanager Erich Kolb says: „Changes in the setup that only influence the times by one or two tenths have a big impact in the ranking because the FIA GT1 World Championship is very close.”
Navarra (ESP), October 22nd-24th, 2010
The teams met in Navarra, Spain for the eighth and last European FIA GT1 race. The track was new to all pilots because construction was only just finished in 2010. Swiss Racing Team competes with two NISSAN GT-R’s in the world championship, with driver duos Wendlinger (AUT)/Moser (CHE) with starting number 3 and Ara (JPN)/Nilsson (SWE) with starting number 4.The team knew before travelling to the new circuit that is was not very well suited for the NISSAN GT-R’s because it has many slow turns and short straights. Teammanager Erich Kolb says: „Changes in the setup that only influence the times by one or two tenths have a big impact in the ranking because the FIA GT1 World Championship is very close.”
The team is happy with Karl Wendlinger’s qualifying session He reached P12 in Q1 with a very good time, less than a second behind the fastest lap time. With 251 km/h he missed the top speed of his team mate Seiji Ara (JPN) by only 2 km/h. Henri Moser took over and only reached P16 at the unfamiliar track for the qualifying race. Seiji Ara only reached P18 in his qualifying session. Consequently his partner Nilsson did not get a chance to compete.
The qualifying race went without any incidents. Ara/Nilsson placed in P13, Wendlinger/Moser reached P14.
The championship on Sunday was over quickly for the team. Both cars were involved in a bad collision in the first turn and were parked in the pit afterwards.
Teammanager Erich Kolb says: “The second race was like the worst case scenario. It has already happened several times this year that multiple cars were involved in collisions in the first turn. Peter Kox crashed his Lamborghini into the side of Karl Wendlinger’s NISSAN. The car was badly damaged. Seiji Ara was forced to brake because of a spinning car in front of him. While doing so the other Nissan GT-R (Peter Dumbreck) for SUMO Powerteam crashed into his rear and pushed him onto the car in front of him. Both cars were forced to go back into the pit. The race was finished early for us. “Team principal Othmar Welti: “We used tyres from the Portimao race in the free practice session. So we did not expect any great results. In the qualifying we saw what was possible. Karl Wendlinger reached a very good time, just like Seiji Ara in the qualifying race. We are happy that we have the pace. We kept our good tyre sets for the main race. Unfortunately we were thrown out in the first lap.”
