10 juli 2009Dodge versus Audi in Spa
For the third consecutive time the Belgian GT Championship Mediagroep Van Dyck is heading on down to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Following on from the 1000 km of Spa and the 12 Hours of Spa, the 25 Hours VW Fun Cup will be the stage for two exciting races of the BGT 2009. The first race takes place on Friday evening, whilst the second will start on Saturday midday.
The favourites? We can be short and brief. In the first instance it will be the third confrontation at Spa between the KRK Dodge Viper of Koen Wauters and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk and the Audi R8 LMS entered by the German Phoenix in the hands of Jean-François Hemroulle and Tim Verbergt. In the previous meetings at Spa both teams have each won twice and hence they are both leading in the championship, whilst the official Belgian Audi Club drivers are five units ahead of the fast boys in the KRK Viper. In anticipation of the endurance battle during the 24 Hours of Zolder it is now of vital importance to score as many points as possible.
In the fight for pole spot on Friday we must also take into account the fast Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3 of Vincent Vosse, who with his top time of 2.22, is now as fast as the GT2s. We are curious to see what he has up his sleeve this time around…
And now for the outsiders. In the first instance we have the First Motorsport Porsche 997 of Bert Longin and François Verbist and the Ferrari 430 GT3 of Delahaye Francorchamps Motors (Fred Bouvy and Damien Coens). Both teams have experienced bad luck, with respectively a serious crash and a fire, and they will undoubtedly be motivated to seek their revenge. In addition the two Lamborghini Gallardo of JD by KS Motorsport, the Ford GT of Kuismanen Racing as also the second KRK Dodge with Kris Wauters and Raf Vanthoor, all have at least one rendezvous for a place on the podium.
But away from the races quite a lot has been going on. The Belgian GT Championship Mediagroep Van Dyck now has a new promoter, namely a company in the hands of Hans Van de Ven (Motorsport School) and Christian Lahaye (PRC).
“In fact our official collaboration is less than one week old”, Christian Lahaye explained. “We can’t therefore expect any miracles this coming weekend when it comes to the Belgian GT competition. We expect some fifteen to sixteen entrants, with amongst others the BMW Z3 of the British pair Dave Shelton and Phil Keen. But we are now pulling out all the stops to bring together an attractive field of competitors, in the first instance for the 24 Hours of Zolder and then the season’s final races during the FIA GT weekend in Zolder.”
