Friday - 23rd May
During the last May weekend Masaryk Circuit at Brno hosted the fourth round of FIA GT Championship, which was part of the LG Super Racing Weekend. Another races of the meeting were FIA European Touring Car Championship, Masters Formula Renault 2000 and Renault Clio Sport Trophy. All regular contenders were present at Brno including Konrad Saleen that was possible non starter due to continuing gearbox problems in previous three races. The champion of the last year Larbre Competition Viper has now left the championship definitely. Unlike last year there were no local Czech teams except championship regulars Enge/Pergl with Ferrari but there were still strong 33 cars entry.
Practice sessions
First Friday free practice session was success for factory Lister team. Both cars set time under two minutes and they were the only ones to break 2 minute limit. Just third behind them was Hezemans/Kumpen Force One Chrysler Viper ahead the BMS Ferrari #22 and the remaining Lister entered by private Creation Autosportif team. Best JMB Ferrari was 6th ahead of first Saleen in Konrad team hands. Winners of the first three races Biagi and Bobbi who are now running with maximum weight ballast were 9th in the first session. Graham Nash Motorsport Saleens started the session rather slowly and finally were classified only 10th and 13th.
N-GT class was headed by Freissinger Motosport Porsche driven by Ortelli/Lieb followed very closely by Czech team Menx with Ferrari Modena in hands of local star Tomas Enge. Altoger 31 cars took part in this session. Non starters were EMKA Porsche and Cirtek Motorsport Porsche. Newly acquired Proton Porsche 996 did only two laps at the end of the session. This is former Freissinger car. Surprisingly also older Proton car was present with Casadei, Soli and Marcinkiewicz driving. This old Porsche 911 GT2 is the car with the highest number of starts in sportscar racing at international or national level of all car still actively racing.
Tomas Enge was without doubt the quickest GT driver on the track during Friday and won both free sessions and was the only driver to run under 2 minutes. Second was always Lister no.14 driven by Jamie Campbell-Walter.
Saturday - 24th May
First qualifying session
The morning session started with Lister of Campbell-Walter and Kinch at the front but they were soon replaced by Ferrari Maranello of championship leaders Biaggi and Bobbi. They were just confirmed as a winners of previous race at Pergusa. After team's appeal against disqualification of their car #22 the results were provisional. By the half of the session Lister moved back to the front with time about 1 minute 57 seconds, which was already better than existing GT record of the track. In about 15 minutes before the end of the session Gounon took over Konrad's Saleen for one flying lap and immediatelly set the provisional pole position. His time 1:56.695 meant improvement of existing track record for GT cars by more than one and half seconds. Lister #14 retained second still under 1:57. Championship leaders in Ferrari #23 were third despite carrying 100 kg weight ballast and also their team-mates Cappellari/Gonin in Ferrari #22 were quicker than former track record set last year by Jamie Campbell-Walter in Lister. Second factory Lister finished the session in the fifth position followed very closely by Hezemans/Kumpen in the best Chrysler Viper and both Graham Nash Saleens.
Of the 17 GT class cars only one was slower than top N-GT runners. That one slow GT car was Proton Competition Porsche GT2 but it was still nice to see this classic Turbo car on the track adding variety to the strong field. Even Wieth Ferrari Maranello did great improvent since its last time at Brno two years ago and with Kaufmann at the wheel was by more than a second quicker than Ortelli/Lieb in the fastest N-GT car, the Freissinger Porsche. They were followed by three Ferrari 360 Modenas of three different teams: JMB #52, Maranello Concessionares #89 and local team Menx with Tomas Enge and Robert Pergl. Like in GT class all these top four cars were quicker than existing track record for N-GT class that was set by Terrien/Pescatori JMB Ferrari two years ago.
Second qualifying session
Afternoon session was held under very hot weather and it was not expected the morning times would be improved. Most of the teams ŕather tried race setup and achieved times really stayed behind the morning ones. After 10 minutes of the session Chrysler Viper of Hezemans/Kumpen set the best time and kept it during the whole session. They were the only ones that ran under two minutes. Babini/Peter were second but after having had cancelled most of their morning times due to ride height infringement that wasn't satisfactory and secured them only eleventh spot on the grid for the race. Other positions belonged to second Force One Viper, Lister #14, Konrad's Saleen, BMS Ferrari #23 and Graham Nash Saleen #7. Their sister car number 8 didn't finish and had to be towed to the pits. Also one of the Concessionares Ferraris had some problems and ended out of the track with damaged front bodywork. Fastest in N-GT class were once again Ortelli/Lieb ahead of JMB Ferrari #52 and Maranello Concessionares #88. The only car that improved its time from the morning session was Cirtek Motorsport Porsche driven by Mayall/Khan but they were only 31st in combined results. Rieds with their new Porsche GT3-RS were slowest of all despite it is the same chassis that driven by Ortelli and Lieb won Brno FIA GT race in N-GT last year.
Sunday - 25th May
Warm Up
The FIA GT warm up session started the Sunday's programme. Altogether 32 cars took part in. The missing one competitor was the private Lister team. Hezemans/Kumpen once again topped the time sheets with rather good 1:59.108. They were followed by two Saleens of Konrad and Graham Nash, and JMB Ferrari #9 that showed its potential after having had cancelled its best times from Saturday.
The Race
As during the whole meeting so far, the very warm and sunny weather awaited for all 33 competitors before the start of the fourth race of the FIA GT Championship 2003. RWS Yukos team had to change the engine on their number 99 car because the old one had blown during morning warm up. Cirtek Motorsport Porsche missed the grid and had to start from the pits. The loss wasn't that much because the car was to be gridded in penultimate row.
The start was almost without problems but one of JMB Ferrari Maranellos went off the track at the first corner and the car (#10) was never re-started again. Gounon, starting yellow Konrad Saleen kept the lead since the start, pulling away from Campbell-Walter in the Lister, which was closely followed Bobbi in BMS Ferrari. Since the very beginning of the race Gounon ran very quick setting each lap under two minutes and after only 3 laps he was nearly 5 seconds ahead of nearest competitor. Also other positions remained unchanged with Campbell-Walter second, Bobbi third, Hezemans in the best Viper fourth and Gollin in second BMS Ferrari fifth. Further in the field since the first lap there ran Piccini in Lister #15, Alliot in Viper #4, remaining JMB Ferrari Maranello #9 with Peter at the wheel, both Saleens of Graham Nash Motorsport with Chaves and Erdos, private Lister in hands of Verdon-Roe and the rest of GT field: Rob van der Zwaan in his Viper, Calderari in the third BMS Ferrari Maranello entered under Care Racing banner, Swedish Viper with Wallinder who returned for the full season to the championship after three years off and Wieth Ferrari this time driven by Wolfgang Kaufmann. These positions remained nearly unchanged during more than first 10 laps. Only Verdon-Roe lost two positions during lap 6 and Wieth Ferrari came into troubles with steering and had to visit the pits after only 8 laps in the race. Later they joined the race but after another 5 pit stops they retired but were still classified last.
During lap 12 Erdos in Graham Nash Saleen overtook Peter in JMB Ferrari and ran eighth. However the other Graham Nash Saleen pitted already in lap 16 and then again three laps later. Four different makes were on top 4 positions until lap 20 when well running Hezemans in the fastest Viper had punture and with rather damaged rear bodywork slowly moved to the pits. Between laps 25 and 33 all GT class contenders made their first series of pitstops. During this period Campbell-Walter took the lead for three laps and even Erdos appeared in the lead for a single lap before turned to the pits too. After the pistops Biagi appeared at the front. Seiler who took over from Gounon ran after longer pitstop second but he was soon pushed hard by Kinch in Lister #14. In this part of the race they were followed by second BMS Ferrari #22, second Lister #15, third BMS Ferrari #21, private Lister #6 and two Vipers of team Roos and van der Zwaan. The latter car overtook soon the Roos car. Both of Force Once Festina Chrysler were already out of the race by this time. Number 5 joined the race after the puncture and ran for some time just ahead of last and regularly pitting Wieth Ferrari but after catching back of the N-GT field the car retired because of the damages caused by the blown tyre. The other car #4 kept the pace until lap 33 when it slowly went to the pits with blown engine and was forced to retire too.
Kinch in Lister #14 was unable to overtake Seiler in Konrad Saleen for several laps but he finally managed that in lap 45 only to spin a lap later. He lost full 90 seconds and that moment probably decided the race. The car dropped down to the sixth place. So Biaggi in leading Ferrari #23 was challenged neither by Lister, nor by Seiler who was running slower than Gounon. Seiler was soon attacked by Deletraz in Lister #15 but Seiler resisted for several laps until he was overtaken during lap 51. Five laps later a second series of pitstops began. While Bobbi who replaced Biaggi easily maintained the lead ahead of Piccini in Lister #15, Franz Konrad in his Saleen struggled with electrical problems and was never able to return to third. After couple of another pitstops he finally finished the race running slowly on the strights in 16th position and 10th in class.
After the final series of pitstops Campbell-Walter was back again in Lister #14 trying to get back positions lost by Kinch's spin. After Konrad's problems and quicker pitstop than Care Racing/BMS car #21 Campbell-Walter ran fourth and was closing gap between him and third Gollin in BMS Ferrari #22 by about one second every lap. But it wasn't enough and positions remained unchanged until the finish despite Gollin pushing very hard on Piccini in the final laps. So Bobbi and Biagi won for the fourth time in a row despite carrying maximum 100 kg weight ballast for their previous wins. Piccini/Deletraz were happy with the second place and Cappellari/Gollin were third, same as they were here in the last year. Top 6 were filled by Calderari/Bryner/Livio in Care/BMS Ferrari and Verdon-Roe/Zadra in private Lister. By the way, this is the car that won the FIA GT Championship in 2000. Remaining championship points were taken by duo of Graham Nash Motorsport Saleens in 7th and 8th overall. Only Viper in the finish was the Swedish car of Roos/Wallinder in 13th position. It was a big change since last year when five Vipers were in top 6.
N-GT race was a battle between Ortelli/Lieb in Freissinger Porsche, Bertolini/de Simone in JMB Ferrari Davies/Mullen in Maranello Concessionares Ferrari and Sugden/Short in the same EMKA Porsche GT3-R that we saw in the championship in 2000 and 2001. During the first half of the race they were joined by the second Maranello Concessionares Ferrari in hands of Burt/Turner. They were even leading for a while during pitstops but later they lost many laps because of electrical problems and very long repair. Ortelli/Lieb crossed the line first and repeated their victory from last year. They were ninth overall just ahead of Ferraris of JMB and Maranello Concessionaires, and the EMKA Porsche. All cars finished in the same lap only three laps behind overall winners.
The race wasn't as great as last year when Lister took the lead just in the final lap and four cars still ran together in the closing stages of the race and there were five cars that could still win with 20 minutes before the end. But it showed new potential of the championship. The grid was stronger than ever but predict the winner was easier than last year. Chryslers will probably soon go away from the series but Saleens brought back fresh wind into the series and in hands of fast drivers and with a little more reliability they would be main contenders for the title. But at the moment it is not likely they would even win any race because only Gounon is able to use full potential of the car that is by many oppinions considered the most spectacular car in the field and it remains some of the prototypes of golden group C days. Ferrari is now very hard to beat but it is sure that championship will attract many fans of this famous manufacturer, which is also good point for the series. Listers will probably win several races but probably only on tracks that suit them well. N-CT championship is much more open and top Ferraris and Porsches are all on the same level. Next year we should see new Supercars GT. They should be more spectacular and with modifications similar to current N-GT cars they will run for points against current GT cars.