Vita4One BMW drivers Yelmer Buurman and Michael Bartels took their first win of the 2012 FIA GT 1 World Championship season at Zolder Saturday, edging out All-Inkl-Munnich-Motorsport’s Nicky Pastorelli and Thomas Jäger by less than six-hundredths of a second.
Yelmer Buurman didn’t have time to talk much after the race, as he was committed to drive in the next event. He took a few seconds to tell the GT1 reporter, “It was great; in the rain we were really quick then when it started drying we struggled a bit with the tires. Michael [Bartels] did a fantastic job so—P1!”
Michael Bartels said that there was some confusion with the scoring at the end.
“I was not sure in which position I was, in the last five laps; I saw P2, so I became a little nervous. I was a bit quicker than the car in front of me, Winkelhock, but the car behind, Jäger, was pushing quite hard.
“After the quite frustrating opening of the season, to have victory in the qualifying race is good it’s good to be back on the podium.”
The race started with a wet track, and started with controversy: Peter Kox in the #25 Reiter Lamborghini edged past Oliver Jarvis’s Team WRT Audi at the start. Kox was given a drive-through on lap 15, giving the lead to the #33 WRT Audi of Oliver Jarvis—the car which won the first two races of the season.
The top five cars were lapping within four seconds of one another for the first half of the racewith Kox a couple seconds ahead and no space between 2–3–4. Buurman started fourth, lost a place to the Reiter Lamborghini of Thomas Enge and took it back on lap three, and spent the rest of his stint harassing Marc Basseng in the #38 All-Inkl Mercedes for third.
The track was dry enough by the time the pits opened for cars to switch to slick, yet somehow Team WRT sent out both cars on rain tires. Driver Oliver Jarvis called it the result of “a miscommunication—I called for slick tires but the radio didn’t work.”
Many teams were having radio problems because of the weather and the trees lining the course, but even if one of the WRT drivers had been misunderstood to ask for rain tires, the crew could have watched what all the other teams did, and at least split strategy. Instead both cars had to repit after a couple of laps, ending their chances for another sweep.
The second half of the race was a battle between Mercedes and BMW, with Porsche lurking just behind. Marcus Winkelhock in the #38 All-Inkl Benz led Michael Bartels in the #18 BMW with Thomas Jäger catching him up from behind, while Matt Halladay in the #9 Exim Bank 911 chased all the leaders.
By lap 28 less than three seconds separated the top three, with the Porsche 18 seconds back and closing. Apparently Winkelhock had a softer set-up, suited to the wet starting conditions, but Jäger had a dry setup and was the faster of the two at the end; but Jäger couldn’t find a way past Bartels.
