The fifth round of the GT Open championship is being held this weekend at the Silverstone circuit in the UK. While our friends at Scuderia Ferrari sat in the rain in Monza waiting for qualifying to start for the Italian Grand Prix, the British track was bathed in beautiful late summer sunshine.
Our regular GT Open pairing of Alex Moiseev and Davide Rizzo were at the wheel of the beautiful Kaspersky Motorsport Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GT3.
Moiseev took on the task of qualifying for Race-1 and at the end of the session, he was second fastest in the AM category, lining up 20th on the grid, three places behind the « pole » in the Amateur class.
A solid start saw the Russian hold second place, but in the first hour, contact with a Lamborghini resulted in a spin for the Kaspersky car, dropping us to fourth in class. Alex handed over to Davide at the mid point and the Italian set about trying to close on the leaders, but the spin had proved costly and it looked like fourth in class was all that was on offer this afternoon. However, a drive-through penalty for the car ahead promoted us to third AM car at the chequered flag, after the 70 minutes of racing.
A disappointing first race therefore at Silverstone, but tomorrow’s second one presents the team with a chance to do better. For Sunday morning’s second qualifying, Davide Rizzo will be at the wheel.
Alex Moiseev: « I am happy to be racing again in the GT Open after a long summer break. Silverstone is a great circuit, which I know really well from past events. Before the race I spent one day on the simulator in our Kaspersky Lab office in London, where we were working on the telemetry. In today’s Race-1 I had a coming together with a Lamborghini and the ensuing spin cost a couple of places. It’s frustrating, but we made it to the podium in the end and hopefully we can come back stronger for Race-2. »
Davide Rizzo: « I’m really pleased with a podium today, I don’t think we could have got a win, because we couldn’t fight at the front due to the contact with another car. We were hoping for more from this race. All we could do was keep going and get as many points as possible for the championship. Now we are fully motivated and we need to focus on Race-2 tomorrow ».
Press release Kaspersky Motorsport
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