Young Driver AMR team leads GT1 World Championship into last round

16 Sep 2011

After their dominant double victories in both qualifying and championship races at Beijing in September, Young Driver AMR leads the teams’ rankings in the FIA GT1 World Championship in what has become a very closely fought title contest.

In very wet conditions, the DBR9 of Tomas Enge/Alex Muller took the qualifying race lead from the sister car of Darren Turner/Stefan Mucke when the latter stalled during a pit stop, dropping it to second place which the DBR9 held to the flag; earlier the pole position Marc VDS Ford GT of Maxime Martin/Bertrand Baguette had skidded into retirement on the soaking Goldenport circuit. Third place for Christian Hohenadel/Andrea Puccini in their Hexis DBR9 completed an all Aston Martin podium. With Stef Dusseldorp/Clivio Piccione fifth in the sister Hexis car, this meant that the JR Motorsports Nissan GT-R of Michael Krumm and Lucas Luhr (the latter also a regular driver of the Muscle Milk Lola-Aston Martin in the American Le Mans Series), the points leader, was the only non-Aston in the top five.

In similarly wet conditions in the championship race, the Hohenadel/Puccini Hexis DBR9 seemed to have the upper hand over the Young Driver DBR9s, after passing both, until spinning off into retirement in the closing minutes, handing Turner/Mucke the lead and victory. The runner-up spot, in a race that started and finished under the safety car, went to Enge/Muller with Krumm/Luhr taking third place and maintaining their lead in the drivers’ standings, albeit by just 11 points from the 120 of Turner/Mucke. In the early laps the Hexis Aston of Dusseldorp/Piccione had retired after being hit by another car; their teammates, Hohenadel/Piccini lie third in the driver rankings with 101 points, the same as Marc VDS Ford GT pairing Markus Winkelhock/Marc Bessing, and only one point ahead of Enge/Muller.

With Young Driver AMR also leading the teams championship, with 224 points from JR Motorsports on 216 points, and Hexis AMR not far behind on 195, the eighth and final round of the FIA GT1 World Championship at San Luis in Argentina on November 5th/6th promises an exciting and dramatic showdown.