15.01.09 2008 – the year in review

In this past season of racing, Wolfgang Kaufmann took part in the two most important European racing series. In the Le Mans Series, the 42 year old motorsports professional from Molsberg competed in a LMP1 prototype with the factory teams of Peugeot and Audi. And in FIA-GT a GT1 Corvette was at his disposal.

AT Racing GT1 Corvette C5R

Lavaggi LS1 AER

Alexander Talkanitsa & Wolfgang Kaufmann

Wolfgang Kaufmann

The last race of the year for Wolfgang Kaufmann happened in November at the Gold Cup at Vallelunga. Kaufmann took part in this six hour race together with Giovanni Lavaggi. The Sicilian's ambitious project showed some progress in this race: “ Pole position in this field of LMP and GT cars was a nice early Christmas present for the team. But we must not forget that this race was primarily a development run for the car with a view to the next season in the Le Mans Series. A small, effectively privateer team just does not have the testing opportunities of the big factory outfits”, Wolfgang Kaufmann sums up the outing.

The LMP1 prototype eventually finished inside the Top 10 even after an hour's worth of repairs in the pits following an unusual problem: „At the start of the race, the car's rear lowered because of an incongruity in the set up. This took some effort to sort out in the pits. Never forget that Giovanni is an enthusiast, and without enthusiasts such as this team the sportscar scene would surely have slipped into oblivion in the 1990s. Giovanni was Interserie champion in 1993, won the Daytona 24 Hours in 1995 in a prototype, and after his Formula 1 outings spent many years competing in the FIA Sports Car Championship where he scored race wins. With the revival of the 1000 km races through the Le Mans Series, he made the decision to follow the example of Don Panoz or Yves Courage, and build his own prototype.”

But the Sicilian resident of Monaco does not have the wherewithal of the aforementioned Mr. Panoz and Courage: “Giovanni only has a small number of mechanics working for him full-time. He alone is in charge of design and development work, as the team's chief designer and engineer. Unlike many others, he doesn't dream of a prototype racecar, he ambitiously tries to live his dream and put the car on the racetrack. This car leaves a good impression on the track, it has lots of downforce and certainly holds a lot of potential. In hindsight we can say that we had no major problems with the car, but rather a number of “99 cent” bit part failures that only made themselves apparent during the race as our budget did not allow for any extensive testing. Once we have achieved the necessary reliability, I think that once we have achieved that reliability we will be looking for results within reach of the point scoring places, or even more.”

Wolfgang Kaufmann's second field of action was the FIA GT Championship where he competed for the „Citation Cup“ together with Alexander Talkanitsa from Belarus. The Citation Cup is a classification within the GT1 category for gentleman drivers who can enlist the services of a professional driver to share their car: “Initially, the Citation Cup was a good idea to enable people such as Alexander to compete in motor racing at the highest level. Of course it is an unusual situation for a professional driver, the objective being so different from that of a all-professional crew. In the Citation Cup you want to help the amateur driver improve and develop his driving skills.”

However, the sporting regulations limits the Citation Cup's potential. First of all, the teams must use the hard spec. tyres from the FIA GT3 category: “Of course we knew about this before the start of the season but we were surprised at just how unhappy this marriage of GT3 tyres on a GT1 car really is. True, the tyres are consistent – we probably could have done the whole season on one set – but with bad grip.”

Still, there was reason to celebrate at the end of the season: the AT Racing Team, supported by Sepp Renauer's crew, and its drivers Alexander Talkanitsa/Wolfgang Kaufmann secured a well-deserved overall victory in the Citation Cup and received its trophies at the winners' banquet in Monte Carlo.