The Kaspersky Motorsport Ferrari 488 racked up its second Amateur class win in the GT Open at the fantastic Spa-Francorchamps track. After taking the win in Race 1 yesterday, the duo of Kaspersky Lab’s own Alex Moiseev and Italian driver Davide Rizzo had a harder time of it on Sunday in Belgium.
The wet weather for this morning’s qualifying – it just wouldn’t be Spa without some rain! – rather jumbled up the order on the grid, although the warm sunny conditions we had enjoyed all weekend had returned in time for the start of Race 2.
Unfortunately, our Ferrari, with Davide Rizzo at the wheel would line up last after a gearbox problem in qualifying. But having won the first race yesterday, Davide and team-mate Alex Moiseev were optimistic about their chances of moving up the order. And that’s how it went, as we made up two places to be 18th on lap 2 and then moved up one more place by lap 5. The pit stops began around lap 10 and with Davide staying out, he was naturally promoted to 15th place.
Just after Alex took over at the wheel, the rain turned into a monsoon and Alex had to make a second stop for rain tyres as the Safety Car came out with many drivers going off the track at the Bruxelles hairpin corner. Alex survived a spin himself, but did a good job to stay on track and come to the pits for the rain tyres.
The conditions meant that the Safety Car stayed out until the track was deemed safe for racing again, by which point there was only time for four more laps at race speed. Safely negotiated to the flag, Kaspersky Motorsport finished 15th overall and added today’s class win to Saturday’s victory.
Davide Rizzo: « I am very happy to get this win with Alex and Kaspersky Motorsport. We did a great job individually and as a team. The race turned out to be a lot more difficult than we expected. We were unlucky in Quali and we didn’t have the pace to fight at the front. The car felt okay to drive and I was happy enough with it. I think we did a decent job. »
Alex Moiseev: « I am so happy with this win! Spa is a very challenging circuit with a lot of high-speed corners. I have been learning a lot about other aspects of endurance racing, particularly in terms of traffic. The pressure is higher at a race weekend but I enjoyed every single lap so far. Compared to last year the car feels different, in a good way, so I am happy with the start of my 2017 programme. Big thanks to the team, because the guys did a great job getting the car back out there after our problems in Quali. Now we will try to make the most of it by analysing the data and the set-up to be well prepared for the next race at Paul Ricard. »
Press release Kaspersky Motorsport
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