13 April 2008Double podia for Steve Vanbellingen and Marnix Vandermaesen in the BGTC
Limburg based Marnix Vandermaesen and Leuven domiciled Steve Vanbellingen during the first meeting of the Belgian GT Championship provided the British Ginetta make with two second places. Make and team-mates Bert Redant and Tom Cloet in their Ginetta G50 finished in a fourth and fifth place in their category.
All in all it was not an easy weekend for the team of Koen Leyssens and Steve Vanbellingen. On Friday evening the team were advised that in the “Balance of Power” context the car would be receiving additional penalties. The “Balance of Power” is a technical philosophy aiming at bringing all GT4 cars, of which the Ginetta is a part and parcel, into a sporting equality.
Koen Leyssens (team manager KS): “We do however have two objections. In the first place this decision was rather last minute. We have entered two entirely new cars and obviously at this present moment in time don’t have that much experience with them. If you then have to adapt the weight (+60 kg) and the ride height (+10 mm), only a few hours prior to the first qualifying session you obviously cannot get your car into optimum shape. In addition any car without the ideal set-up becomes a pure hazard. It is therefore unacceptable that these measures are brought about at the last minute. Secondly we are competing in Division 2 of the Belgian GT Championship and not only up against other GT4-cars, but also Cup-cars which are naturally loads faster. The difference with them has now become even bigger. Is this therefore a “Balance of Power” ... ?”
KS Motorsport, for threat of being totally banned from the meeting was obliged to adapt the cars and in fact had to start the first race from the pitlane.
Marnix Vandermaesen: “Starting from the pitlane is definitely not the ideal advantage. In addition it was wet and you’re immediately faced with the spray from other cars, making it difficult to link up with the pack. All in all a second place is a pretty extraordinary result, in fact a performance we repeated in race 2. Let us not forget that the car is still young and over time during the coming season will obviously become faster.”
In the case of Bert Redant and Tom Cloet the weekend was somewhat more difficult. Both drivers became acquainted with the G50 and in race 1 drove to a highly contested fourth place. “Unfortunately at the start of the second race I slid into the sand trap”, Tom Cloet told us after the race. “I had a problem with the brakes and landed up in the gravel. In a race this normally implies over and out, except that in this case we managed to get out and finally took the flag in fifth spot.”
During the course of this week KS Motorsport will be issuing additional details regarding an eventual participation in the first meeting of the SRO GT4 at Silverstone.
More news to follow.
