The No. 62 Risi Ferrari F430 GTC of Jaime Melo and Gianmaria Bruni recorded the team\u2019s first ever victory at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course today after an intensely exciting GT battle throughout the whole of the sixth round of the American Le Mans Series.\u00a0\u00a0 It was Risi Competizione\u2019s third victory this season, and the result takes the team to an equal first in the Teams\u2019 and Manufacturers\u2019 Championship battles, and Melo and Bruni to second in the Drivers\u2019 Championship points chase, just eight points behind the lead.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s win was balanced by disappointment in the retirement just ten minutes before the end of the 2 hour 45 minute race of the No. 61 Pennzoil Ultra sponsored Ferrari F430 of Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander.\u00a0 Contact from another GT car caused suspension damage which prevented them from being able to continue to the checkered flag, much to the frustration of the whole team.<\/p>\n
Team Principal Giuseppe Risi summed up the race as follows:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m obviously delighted with the outcome for the No. 62 car.\u00a0 The race wasn\u2019t easy by any means, but Jaime did a fantastic job to hold off the close attentions of the Corvette for the last 18 laps and his pass on both the BMWs after his second pit stop was one of the defining moments of the race.\u00a0\u00a0 This delight is of course balanced by the fact that the No. 61 wasn\u2019t able to finish the race.\u00a0 Giancarlo and Toni deserved a better result today, particularly as Giancarlo was so competitive during the race; his times were right up there with the leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bruni, who posted the fastest GT lap of the race, started in the No. 62 and was able to make a relatively easy pass on his team mate to lead from the first lap until the first round of pit stops, held under the first of three full course caution periods.\u00a0 Despite being frustrated by a slower prototype ahead, which was preventing him from pulling\u00a0 out a greater gap to the rest of the GT pack, he was able to hand over the car to Melo while at the head of the GT class.\u00a0 The pit stops brought about a shuffle in the order but the Ferrari was always in contention until the Brazilian experienced a problem with the Ferrari\u2019s primary fuel pump after an hour\u2019s running which dropped him back to sixth place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After switching to the reserve pump, Melo was able to begin the fight back to the front of the field, picking off cars one by one until he make the stunning move on the two BMWs with just 45 minutes left to run.\u00a0 An epic battle with Oliver Gavin\u2019s Corvette then ensued, reminiscent of the one enjoyed by so many at Le Mans this year, until the second of the full course caution periods occurred 50 minutes before the end of the race.\u00a0 Melo knew that the battle could be won or lost in the pits, and elected at the last minute to take just left side Michelin tires instead of a full set and gaining valuable seconds which allowed him to exit the pits before Gavin.\u00a0\u00a0 He went on to take the checkered just 0.582 seconds ahead of the Corvette, recording his 17th ALMS career win and Bruni\u2019s third.<\/p>\n
Jaime Melo said afterwards:\u00a0 \u201cIt was pretty hard to hold the position because at the last stop we just changed the left side tires so it was getting difficult to find grip in the left hand corners.\u00a0 We had a very consistent car and I could keep very good lap times, although I had some slow traffic on the last two laps and that brought the Corvette very close.\u00a0 I tried to stay calm and not make any mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was very hard but it was important for us to win here because of the Championship. Gimmi did a great job at the start, and it was a combination of the Michelin tires, the Ferrari, the team and my teammate which allowed us to win today. My pass on the BMWs was the only chance to get around them because it was almost impossible to get pass them on a straight line. I actually got a little bit in the grass but it worked.<\/p>\n
Gianmaria Bruni added:\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI think first of all I have to say a big thank you to Jaime for today.\u00a0 He did everything we needed to win, passing the BMWs and the Corvette.\u00a0 We had some issues with the car and we lost four or five places but Jaime came back so it was a good race to watch.\u00a0 We have a similar mentality so I know how he thinks about these things and I knew he would do it.\u00a0 I\u2019m very happy for everyone on the team and at Ferrari for this result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite starting from pole position, won by Toni Vilander with a stunning lap yesterday, today\u2019s Mid Ohio Sports Car Challenge didn\u2019t fall the way of the Finnish-Italian duo.\u00a0 Slight delays in the pit stops dropped them from the leading pack but Fisichella was charging back into contention each time, despite also struggling with car-to-pit communications due to a malfunctioning radio connection.\u00a0 The final blow came just 11 minutes before the end of the race, when contact occurred between the No. 61 and another GT car.<\/p>\n
Giancarlo Fisichella explains:\u00a0 \u201cIt was a disappointing race as far as the result, especially the last ten minutes before the end when I was overtaking \u2013 lapping \u2013 another car and we had a crash.\u00a0 I was inside him and ahead going into the corner, and it\u2019s absolutely not my fault, but he touched my rear wheel, and I spun off the track. We were very competitive until then although we had some problems with the pit stops which lost us some positions.\u00a0 Without these problems, I think we could have scored a one-two so I\u2019m looking forward instead now to the next time I\u2019ll be here in the American Le Mans Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toni Vilander:\u00a0 \u201cOf course it\u2019s disappointing for Giancarlo and me not to be able to finish what we started so well with our pole position, but we have to be happy for the Risi team and Ferrari and their win today.\u00a0\u00a0 The car was very good, and our lap times showed that we were just as fast as the leaders, but luck wasn\u2019t on our side with the contact on the track.\u00a0 Maybe weren\u2019t as slick in the pits as the other car, which has been doing this for much longer in this series, but we will be better next time and we will try our best again to get an even better result \u2013 a one-two finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | ALMS<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The No. 62 Risi Ferrari F430 GTC of Jaime Melo and Gianmaria Bruni recorded the team\u2019s first ever victory at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course today after an intensely exciting GT battle throughout the whole of the sixth round of the American Le Mans Series.\u00a0\u00a0 It was Risi Competizione\u2019s third victory this season, and …<\/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":[5264,5334,792,272,431,108,103,206,5281,2072,1750],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673"}],"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=7673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7675,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673\/revisions\/7675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}