Race report-Risi Competizione | Mosport

RISI RACE TO STRONG SECOND PLACE AT MOSPORT | 30.08.2009

Jaime Melo and Pierre Kaffer drove a superb race from the back of the grid to take second place at the Grand Prix of Mosport today, crossing the line just 0.3 seconds behind the GT class winning #3 Corvette C6.R of Jan Magnussen and Johnny O’Connell.
 
The red Ferrari F430 GT and the two yellow Corvettes put on quite a show for the fans and the TV audience with plentiful good, clean, nose-to-tail racing.  That the Ferrari was able to be in this position was thanks to the brilliance of Risi Competizione’s Brazilian driver who moved from 9th up to 5th in the highly competitive class within the first ten laps, and up to 2nd by the time the team’s first pit stop took place an hour into the race.
 
Super-fast and slick pit work by the Risi Competizione mechanics, under the first and only full course caution period, saw the Ferrari move into the class lead – a position it held for another ten laps before the #4 Corvette pushed past amongst traffic.  Despite challenging hard right through to the end of the race, first with the #4 and then with the #3, Pierre Kaffer was unable to get close enough on the straights to be able to find a way past into the lead.  The German set the fastest GT lap of the race with a time of 1:18.602 during this time, and completed a faultless double stint.

Giuseppe Risi was delighted with his team’s performance and commented afterwards,  “Today the team has re-established itself one more time in the American Le Mans Series.  I’m very proud of the way that both our drivers performed, and of the whole team for the job they did in repairing the car after yesterday’s practice accident.  Their pit work today was also very good indeed and we gained much from that too.”
 
An extremely happy Pierre Kaffer was full of praise for the Risi team.  “I’m really pleased for the team to have got this result because the guys did a great job to put everything back together overnight.  The car was great to drive, and Jaime did a perfect first stint to get us in the right position to fight for the victory.  It was a great race right until the finish with hard but fair racing, and the Corvette deserved to win in the end.  But I must say that in Atlanta I think it should be the other way round!”
 
Jaime Melo recognised that this was a great result considering the team’s starting place. “It was hard work but I pushed from the beginning, that was my strategy.  The car was really good in Turns 8, 9 and 10 which allowed me to get good exit speed from T10 allowing me to get most of the guys into Turn 1.  The team did a very good job on the pit stops, like always, and thank you to them for everything they did for the repair of the car and to put the car in such good shape for the race.”

© RIF/Risi Competizione