8.05.09 Unsatisfactory start to the FIA GT3 season

Wolfgang Kaufmann and his Italian team mate Luca Moro took part in the season opener of the FIA GT3 European Championship at Silverstone last weekend. They drove a Corvette Z06.R entered by Callaway Competition, the championship winning car of 2008.

Wolfgang Kaufmann

Callaway Corvette Z06 R

Callaway Corvette Z06 R

The concept of GT3 racing is based around the idea of performance balancing by an array of adjustments to the cars, these are mandated by the world motorsport governing body FIA to prevent high develompent cost and bring all cars to the same basic speed. For the Corvettes, these measures seemed to have gone a step too far.

"We had a massive problem with traction which we could not get sorted on soft tyres", Wolfgang Kaufmann explains the travails of the Callaway crew, "basically, the FIA's concept is a good one because neither the fans nor the drivers want to see one type of car driving rings around the others. But I think the Corvette has been reined in too much."

In the free practice sessions, Kaufmann let his team mate do most of the running to allow him to get used to the track and the Corvette. Grid positions 17 (Kaufmann) and 30 (Moro) represented the optimum under the given circumstances.

Both races were less than satisfactory for the team, on Saturday they did not finish the race following a collision with an Aston Martin, and on Sunday the result was a 17th place after two spins by Moro toward the end of the race. "We'll just have to write off this weekend, and quick. At the Hockenheim and Paul Ricard tests, the Corvette ran with absolutely no problems at all, only these FIA decisions have relegated us to the mid-field", Kaufmann openly admits his frustration over the results.

Next weekend's racing will hopefully go better: again partnering with Luca Moro, Wolfgang Kaufmann will compete in the new "Formula Le Mans" in a prototype entered by DAMS. In the 1000k race on Sunday, he will again support Giovanni Lavaggi's LMP1 effort.