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Racereport 2003 / 02 Mondello


A walk in Irish Park

 

With their second race of the season the FIA European Challenge for Historic Touring Cars and the FIA Cup for Historic Grand Touring Cars started on new ground. “It is a fantastic atmosphere here”, said Coordinator Ronny G. Bredhauer on behalf of the FIA competitors. Most of them travelled directly from Donington to Mondello Park.

 

The 1-hour-touring car race for the pre’66 cars (FIA-TC’65) was a “Festival Italiano” with one Alfa Romeo GTA winning the overall classment and the four Alfa Romeo Giulietta TI (1950s) of Scuderia del Portello having their own struggle for the championship points at the end of the grid. As in Donington Marco Rossi and Marco Cajani (I) won their class.

 

 

 

Big luck for Anton

 

In the tussle for the overall win, Dieter-Karl Anton (A) saw the chequered flag in his GTA as first 44 seconds ahead of Bo Warmenius/Gunnar Turebrand (S) in the Ford Lotus Cortina. But the ex-Formula 2-champion of Austria had luck. Up to the last lap the Donington winners Max Rostron/Ulf Larsson were leading. But after a puncture their Ford Mustang had to retire. They didn’t manage to cross the finishing line. So the fastest Mustang came in as third overall with Nigel Vaulkhard/John Smirthwaite (GB). In the Championship Anton leads with 43 points ahead of Marco Rossi/Marco Cajani with the Giulietta TI.

 

Some of the teams had problems with their Dunlop tyres in Mondello Park. They had to use the mandatory pit stop of one minute not only to change the drivers but also to change tyres. It was a very spectacular pit stop period. Without problems Graham Churchill (GB) was the fastest Mini Cooper driver – but also without other competitors. So he scored only the half amount of points. The championship winners of 2003 Claude Boissy/Alain Miran (F) could not take part in the Irish round of the FIA-TC‘65.

 

 

 

Schachinger did it again

 

Their counterpart in the FIA-GTC’65, Bo Warmenius (S), celebrated his first win of this season in the Lotus Elan. The fast Swedish driver crossed the line only 0,6 seconds ahead of Jamie Boot (GB) in the TVR Griffith. Nearly one second later Allen Tice (GB) completed the podium in a thrilling final with his Marcos 1800 GT. In the second run Tice was the lucky man winning the race in his Volvo powered GT. It was the first overall victory of a Marcos 1800 GT driver in the FIA-GTC’65. Harry Wyndham (GB) became second in his Jaguar E-Type, 2.6 seconds ahead of Ian Cox (GB) in the Austin-Healey 3000 (the fastest driver of the FIA period E). Second in this classment for the older cars was Udo Voßhenrich (D) in the Lotus Elite. Bo Warmenius and James Boot as well, retired due to technical problems. Hans-Jürgen Malsbenden (D) finished in the second position of his class in the first race with his Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray but had to retire in the second race. But the German “Corvette captain” is leading the FIA-GTC’65 classification after two of eight races.

 

In the pre’77 race for Touring and GT cars (FIA-GTC-TC’76) Wolfgang Schachinger won both races in his Alpina BMW 3.0 CSL ahead of Dr. Helmut Stein in the ex-Jörg Obermoser Ford Escort RS. Third was Paehr Svensson (S) in a Mini Marcos.

 

For the next race in Most (CZ), FIA-Coordinator Ronny G. Bredhauer expects more cars in the new classes, for example Porsche RSRs as well as the ex-works Ford Capri RS 3100 of Peter Mücke (D) and the spectacular De Tomaso Panteras of Henrik Lindberg and Claus Damgaard (both DK).

 


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