{"id":3643,"date":"2010-03-23T20:17:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T00:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=3643"},"modified":"2010-03-23T20:18:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T00:18:05","slug":"risi-competizione-continue-winning-endurance-streak-with-gt2-sebring-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/alms\/risi-competizione-continue-winning-endurance-streak-with-gt2-sebring-win\/","title":{"rendered":"RISI COMPETIZIONE CONTINUE WINNING ENDURANCE STREAK WITH GT2 SEBRING WIN"},"content":{"rendered":"
Houston-based Risi Competizione gave a dominant display of endurance racing today at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, with its #62 Ferrari F430 GTC winning the GT2 class for the third time in four years and placing an impressive 6th place overall.\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The race win, in the hands of Gianmaria Bruni, Jaime Melo and Pierre Kaffer, extended a winning streak of endurance classic victories encompassing Sebring, Le Mans and Petit Le Mans which began in France in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s #61 car, piloted by Tracy Krohn, Nic Jonsson and Eric van de Poele, overcame an intermittent misfire, which had plagued them for much of the race and caused a loss of power, to finish 7th in class and 14th overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Team Principal Giuseppe Risi was both proud and emotional at the end of the long, hot race and said:\u00a0 \u201cThis is a very special moment, once again.\u00a0 There are always special moments when you race hard and have success, but even more so to win at Sebring and to do so for the third time in four years with the Ferrari 430.\u00a0 I hope that this goes a long way towards letting every 430 owner in the whole world know what a great car this is.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"While the GT race offered much potential excitement for race fans at the green flag, with extremely strong entries from BMWs, Corvettes, Ferraris and Porsches, various track and pit incidents befell many of Risi\u2019s competitors.\u00a0 After leading for over ten of the 12 hour race, the #62 car took the checkered flag one lap ahead of the BMWs of Dirk Werner and Dirk M\u00fcller.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jaime Melo (#62-GT2 Ferrari 430) paid tribute to the Ferrari 430 GTC and to his team:\u00a0 \u201cI am really happy \u2013 we couldn\u2019t ask for more than this at the start of the season.\u00a0 The Risi team is very, very good and, with three drivers who are very consistent like me, Gimmi and Pierre were today, it\u2019s the way to win this kind of race.\u00a0 The Michelin tires work well for us and we can always rely on them completely.\u00a0 Having said that, the only problem we had was in my first stint when the tires went off a bit in the second half of the stint \u2013 because we\u2019d done a few more laps in qualifying than our competitors.\u00a0 I know the 430 from when we first started developing the car in 2006 and we want to put it in the history books in the best way possible so we want to win this year so bad.\u00a0 By doing that, we can send it off in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gianmaria Bruni (#62-GT2 Ferrari 430 GT) \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic feeling to win, after being 2nd last year.\u00a0 It was special because it was kind of a dream race and I enjoyed it a lot.\u00a0 We were fighting at the beginning, then overtook the leader and pulled away.\u00a0 We were only not in the lead twice and both times we overtook the leader which was fun.\u00a0 We showed that the three of us drivers, Risi, and Michelin worked really well together and this really helps with momentum going into the rest of the season.\u00a0 I think it will be a great season!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pierre Kaffer (#62-GT2 Ferrari 430 GT): \u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful feeling to win another endurance race and it\u2019s awesome to drive the for best GT2 team with a Ferrari.\u00a0 From my part I am pleased to have been able to help the team start the season so well and give them a good way forward for Long Beach and the rest of the season.\u00a0 Thanks especially to all the mechanics who did a brilliant job after my little mistake earlier in the week \u2013 you really get to enjoy driving this car and to do it here with Jaime and Gimmi was really great.\u201d\"\"<\/p>\n

Tracy W. Krohn (# 61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari 430): \u201cOverall it was a fairly good result. The problem was the car was misfiring and at the end we broke something in the right rear suspension. Nic was driving the car. I was going to get in the car for the final stint but with the motor misfiring and a broken rear shock it probably didn\u2019t\u00a0 make sense to feel something you hadn\u2019t gotten used to so we just kept Nic in and kept ahold of seventh place. I think under the circumstances, with the car underpowered and crippled, that was a pretty good finish.\u00a0 Both Nic and Eric did an outstanding job. Otherwise the car was pretty good.\u00a0 Brakes were good, balance was good, tires were good. It\u2019s just one of those things that happens in racing once in awhile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nic Jonsson (# 61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari 430): \u201cIt\u2019s always fun to drive the Ferrari, of course. It\u2019s kind of an honor to be driving a Ferrari in any type of race series. Unfortunately, today we had some electrical issues that caused the engine to cut out on us and lose power randomly. Then in the last hour and a half we also had a right rear shock go out on me, so it was a pretty rough last stint in the car. We brought it home in seventh place, which was mid-pack. We beat both the GM factory cars, the Corvettes, so we\u2019re pleased with that. Everything worked in the middle of the day for some laps in a row without any interruption and we were able to run basically in the top 3-4 pace, which I\u2019m very happy with. The sister car (No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari) won. They were definitely the class of the field and we couldn\u2019t stay with them by any means. They were about a second quicker than we were. Otherwise I\u2019m very pleased.<\/p>\n

\u201cEric did a fantastic job. Tracy also did a good job staying out of trouble. The car was good, except the interruptions we had electronically, which the team didn\u2019t have anything to do with. The preparation of the car was as good as always. I\u2019m looking forward to going to Laguna for another 6-hour race and getting even more prepared for the big race in Le Mans in June.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric van de Poele (#61-GT2 Ferrari 430 GT):\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m always very happy to finish a race at Sebring because it is always so hard. Again, we had a little problem but generally we did very good pit stops; I don\u2019t think any of us made a mistake on the track, so that\u2019s important; and the car was nearly perfect from a chassis point-of-view, except for the misfire from the engine.\u00a0 I had a problem with the brakes but except otherwise everything was fine and consistent. I\u2019m happy always to finish this race. It\u2019s a pleasure to drive for Giuseppe and Tracy. I also want to say congratulations to Jaime, Gimmi and Pierre and the whole Risi team. Everyone did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy ALMS \u00a9 RIF<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston-based Risi Competizione gave a dominant display of endurance racing today at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, with its #62 Ferrari F430 GTC winning the GT2 class for the third time in four years and placing an impressive 6th place overall.\u00a0 \u00a0 The race win, in the hands of Gianmaria Bruni, Jaime Melo …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[833,5264,5334,796,99,431,108,100,103,795,106,5281,794],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3646,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions\/3646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}