The Season Starts in Silverstone

The 2008 season of the FIA GT Championship will get underway at Silverstone, on April 20th. This will be the tenth visit to Silverstone, the fourth running of the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy as part of the Championship and the second year with the two-hour race format.  For the last two years, Vitaphone Racing Team has won the historic Trophy – and has gone on to take the GT1 title.  But whatever happens on Sunday, the season is sure to get off to an exciting start.  The grid looks excellent, with 30 cars expected to line up.  The number of teams entering two cars has expanded, which should make the Teams title fight even closer than in previous seasons.  The return of the Saleen and the Ferrari brings the number of makes in GT1 up to five.  In GT2, the epic fight between Ferrari and Porsche continues, while the G2 class has expanded, with four cars expected to compete for honours. 

Looking at the GT1 field, the variety and quality of the entries is breathtaking.  With very few team/car/driver combinations remaining identical to those seen in  2007, the category is more open than ever.  Vitaphone Racing Team, winners of the Teams Championship for the past three years, will be back with two Maserati MC 12 cars.  In the lead car, former Champions Bartels and Bertolini will be back together again, aiming to repeat their 2006 success. JMB Racing will also enter a Maserati MC 12 for team regulars Peter Kutemann and last year’s Citation Cup winner, Ben Aucott. 
Phoenix Carsport is entering two Corvette C6-R cars, crewed by their victorious quartet from last year’s triumph in the Total 24 Hours of Spa.  Deletraz and Fässler will form an all-Swiss duo, while Hezemans and Gollin share the second car.  A third Corvette C6-R is entered by the Selleslagh Racing Team, from Belgium.  The brand-new car will be in the capable hands of triple FIA GT Champion Christophe Bouchut, whose team-mate will be Xavier Maassen, from the Netherlands, fresh from single-seaters.  A Corvette C5-R will be entered by new Austrian team AT-Racing, with Wolfgang Kaufmann joining Alexander Talkanitsa.

The Saleen S7-R was a race winner and Championship contender in 2006.  Three cars will be entered in 2008, all hoping to get the car back to the top.  Larbre Competition, one of the most successful teams in the history of the FIA GT Championship, will be back after two years away, entering a Saleen S7-R for Vincent Vosse and Greg Franchi.  PK Carsport has exchanged its Corvette C5-R for a Saleen, which will be driven by popular Belgian duo Anthony Kumpen and Bert Longin, while RBImmo, first seen in Brno, will enter its car for the full season with Jos Menten of the Netherlands and Andrea Piccini at the wheel in Silverstone.
As for the Aston Martins, Jetalliance will be back with two cars, with Wendlinger and Sharp reprising their triple-race winning ways, while Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer will share the second car with Alex Müller of Germany.  And Gigawave Motorsport will have a strong duo in their Aston Martin DBR9, first seen in Zolder : Austrian driver Philipp Peter and Danish driver Allan Simonsen, winner of the first-ever FIA GT3 race two years ago.

IPB Spartak Reiter Engineering will enter a Lamborghini Murcielago for Peter Kox and Roman Rusinov.  Silverstone will also see the competitive return of one of the most successful cars in the history of the Championship  : the Ferrari 550 Maranello.  Entered by ACA Argentina, the car will have two experienced and fast Argentine drivers, both former F1 drivers : Esteban Tuero and Gaston Mazzacane.

The GT2 field has seen steady growth in recent seasons, and 2008 is no different.  In particular, there has been a veritable explosion among the Ferrari 430 GT2 family, with no fewer than ten cars planning to compete in most events. 
AF Corse, the Italian team which has been victorious in the past two seasons, will be defending their title against an extremely professional field, all hungry for victory, and including two reigning Champions : Toni Vilander and Thomas Biagi.  New British team CR Scuderia, led by Chris Niarchos, has a particularly strong line-up, including ten-times pole setter Andrew Kirkaldy, who will be paired with equally speedy driver Rob Bell.
Scuderia Ecosse was fastest in the Monza test days, with former GT1 drivers Fabio Babini and Jamie Davies at the wheel, while BMS Scuderia Italia is entering two Ferrari 430 GT2 cars for a rapid quartet, including 2007 Spa winner Matteo Malucelli.  As for Kessel Racing, the Swiss team is making its GT2 debut, along with young Swiss driver Henri Moser, who won the 2007 FIA GT3 European Championship and Italian Fabrizio Del Monte.

Kessel is not the only team to move up from GT3, as British team Trackspeed will do likewise, but with a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR.  They will join the other Porsche competitors, including Belgian team Prospeed Compétition, entering two cars.  One will be an all-Finnish car, for Markus Palttala and Mikael Forsten, while the other will be in the hands of leading Porsche drivers Emmanuel Collard and Richard Westbrook, making his FIA GT debut.

In recent years, Belgian Racing has been the sole regular competitor in the G2 class, its Gillet Vertigo putting in some impressive performances, such as in the rain in Bucharest last year.  2008, however, should see the Vertigo face some serious opposition from the Mosler MT900R cars entered by German team GTO Charouz.  A fourth competitor for Silverstone is ARC Bratislava, with Miro Konopka entering his Saleen S7R in the class.

So who will take the chequered flag on April 20th and earn the right to have their name inscribed alongside the Motorsport heroes of the past ?  The battle is wide open, and with so many crews eager to start off their 2008 campaign in the best possible way, anything could happen.

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