Vitaphone and Maserati claim Teams' Championship!
Back-to-back wins make it 4 Championships in a row

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Since it first raced back in the 2004 season the Maserati MC12 has been the car to beat in the international FIA GT Championship. Over the previous three years the Maserati, campaigned by Vitaphone Racing, has racked up an impressive sequence of podium finishes, race wins and titles – three Teams’ Championships, two Drivers’ titles, two Manufacturers’ Cups and the inaugural Citation Cup for ‘gentleman drivers’.

Actually, make that four Teams’ titles. With Alexandre Negrão and Miguel Ramos winning in France, followed by victory for Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini in Belgium, Vitaphone Racing have clinched yet another championship for Maserati, this time with one race still to go in the season. That makes it four championships in a row for Vitaphone, something no other team has achieved in the history of the FIA GT Championship; in the four years the Maserati has raced over the full season, Vitaphone have been champions each year.

And there is more to come; the team is heading to Argentina for the series finale at San Luis in November, with Bartels and Bertolini looking certain to clinch the Drivers’ title. They have an eight-point lead, with a maximum of ten points available to the winner of the race; if they finish in sixth or above they will claim the third Drivers’ crown in four years for Maserati.

The two most recent races perfectly illustrated the strengths of the Maserati, and the discipline of the well-drilled Vitaphone team. On the short, twisting track at Nogaro, in France, Negrão and Ramos took their first victory of the season, benefiting from slick pitwork from the Vitaphone crew while their rivals dropped time; Bartels and Bertolini were challenging to make it a Maserati 1-2 finish when a hit from a rival punctured a tire, leaving them sixth. The good news was that finishing sixth meant they could drop more than 80 lbs of ballast for the next race.

And they made the most of it; despite a heavy crash for Bertolini during qualifying, the duo ran strongly and made the most of a strategy which differed from their rivals'. They made the most of their light weight to run a long first stint which, coupled with a strong middle stint from Bartels, gave them the win, making it back-to-back victories for the Maserati MC12. So they head to Argentina with their fate in their own hands, looking to win the title they won together in 2006. If they succeed it will make an astonishing ten championships out of a possible twelve over the past four seasons for the Maserati, its team and drivers.

This year, as in the past three seasons, the Maserati MC12 and the Vitaphone Racing team have beaten all comers. They have consistently defeated teams racing cars such as the Corvette, Aston Martin DBR9, Lamborghini Murcielago, Ferrari 550 Maranello and Saleen S7. This is a true new golden era of competition for the Trident, a fitting continuation of the sensational Maserati racers of the past.