MC12 perfect at Spa!
Maserati 1-2 scores another 24 Hour Victory

Vitaphone Racing has made the 24 Hours of Spa something of a specialty; racing the Maserati MC12 supercar in the FIA GT Championship, the team has scored two wins and a second place in the past three years. So they must have been expecting to put up a competitive performance when this year’s edition of the grueling contest took place at the beginning of August – but never in their wildest dreams could they have thought they would achieve the perfect result – a 1-2 finish and maximum points.

Qualifying on the famous Spa-Francorchamps track saw Vitaphone concentrating on race set-up; when a race lasts for 24 hours, grid position counts for almost nothing. Still, the No.1 car of championship leaders Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini, along with ‘guest’ drivers Eric Van de Poele and Stéphane Sarrazin, put in a good performance to qualify seventh, while the No.2 car of regular drivers Miguel Ramos and Alexandre Negrão and ‘guests’ Stéphane Lemeret and Alessandro Pier Guidi was a couple of places higher up the grid.

When the race got under way at 4pm on Saturday, it immediately became clear that this was more like a sprint race than an endurance event; the pace at the front was fast and furious, with eight cars going flat-out trying to find an advantage. So close was the competition that almost every pit-stop saw the lead change hands; at this point the two Maseratis were right in the mix, taking their turns at the front. But then their rivals began to fall by the wayside.

First, a Corvette hit brake problems and went into the tire barriers. Then another Corvette caught fire – bringing out a full-course yellow, shortly before the six-hour mark. The Corvette which was leading the race opted to make a pit-stop, which put Vitaphone in first and second as the clock reached 10pm – this was important, because the first set of points was awarded at that time. Then an Aston Martin DB9 crashed out under braking; a Lamborghini Murcielago needed a gearbox change; a Saleen S7R retired in the pits; and finally the remaining Corvette had a fuel leak and went up in flames.

By contrast, the Vitaphone Maseratis had perfect reliability and an almost perfect race; other than a couple of spins when rain fell across the Spa track, the only incident was a puncture for the No.2 car which cost it a minute or so. Remarkably, from the point where the No.1 car took the lead just before the six-hour point, the two Maseratis led every single lap from there to the finish – the two cars combined led an astonishing total of 442 laps out of 577. For three quarters of the race the MC12s held first and second positions throughout, collecting maximum points at six, twelve and twenty four hours.

Providing further evidence of the pace and reliability of the Maserati, the JMB Racing Maserati MC12 came home fourth, raced by ‘gentleman drivers’ Ben Aucott, Alain Ferté and Stéphane Daoudi. They too had a virtually flawless race – and chose the most difficult race of the year to score their best ever result.

The awesome achievement of collecting maximum points has moved Bartels and Bertolini into a commanding lead in the Drivers’ Championship – and their nearest rivals are now their team-mates, Ramos and Negrão. And the mammoth points haul has given Vitaphone a lead of more than 30 points in the Teams’ table.