By Johan Laubscher
Round 4 of the 2012 FIA GT1 World Championship is being held at the
Slovakia Ring. A track infamous for the flying back straight where cars can get
there front wheels lifting off the ground.
For Audi fans there was a big scare during
qualifying this morning. Stéphane Ortelli in the #32 WRT Audi R8 LMS was
pushing like crazy to extract every last bit of performance from the Audi R8 LMS
ultra when he had a massive high speed off. Ortelli displayed huge amounts of
car control has he managed to miss the wall not once but twice. This off was a
massive scare for Audi fans as the possible contact with the wall would probably
have ended the #32 car crew’s weekend, or at least ended that specific chassis’s
participation.
Some are blaming offs like this on BoP (Balance of performance) which
is resulting in drivers having to drive above the limit because of performance
disadvantages due to the vagrancies of the rules. The effects of BoP are
clearly visibly amongst the teams on the FIA GT1 grid, some for better and others for worse. BoP is a very difficult and equally sensitive topic in racing,
hopefully it will be improved for FIA GT1 very soon, it would be a shame if the
class of FIA GT1 becomes tainted due to something like BoP.
Stéphane Ortelli saves the #32 WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra
More information:
FIA GT1 website
FIA GT1 YouTube channel
The images are from the official FIA GT1 Youtube channel qualifying highlights video
