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News Archive » Let the Good Times Roll August 23, 2008 Andrew Kirkaldy and Rob Bell have done it again and taken victory in Bucharest, finishing off one of the best weekends yet for the CR Scuderia team. Taking both wins of the Bucharest meeting has got the team off and running in the chase for the runner up spot in the FIA GT Championship. The sister CRS Ferrari of Chris Niarchos and Tim Mullen retired half way through with steering problems after a gentle brush with the wall, a timely reminder of how hard it is to race on street circuits. Rob Bell started the race from pole position in the no.56 Ferrari and by the end of lap one when everyone had settled down he was in third place behind Vilander’s Ferrari and Westbrook’s Porsche. Bell brought the car in for Kirkaldy in third place just after the halfway mark of the race. A fantastic pit stop by the CRS mechanics got the Ferrari out in front of the Porsche and Kirkaldy was in second place, ready to hunt down race leader, Gimmi! Bruni, hoping for a repeat of yesterday’s race. “Yesterday I was awake and I started the race from second and took the lead at the first corner,” said Bell. “Today I think I was asleep as I started from pole but ended up third! After that I settled down and stayed behind the Porsche. All credit to the guys in the pits as their brilliant stop got us out ahead of the Porsche and Andrew just had Bruni to contend with. We practiced the pit stops this morning and it has paid dividends. I didn’t think it could get any hotter than yesterday’s race but it was!” With less than three minutes to go Kirkaldy had done it again and passed Bruni for the lead. As he crossed the line the entire team were on the pit wall ready to greet the winner. CRS is now on a roll with five wins from the last five races: the last two Formula Renault races, the British GT race at Silverstone and two FIA GT races in Bucharest. “So much has gone into us getting t! o this point,” said Kirkaldy, who is a director of the team as well as one of the drivers. “It’s not just this FIA team but the British GT team and the Renault team, so it is great for the guys that we are now getting results in FIA GT. It was very hard out there today, even harder than yesterday because of the heat but it was all worth it in the end.” “This has been a dream weekend for us,” said Team Principal, Chris Niarchos. “It’s a shame we had the issues with no.55 as my pace today was so much faster than yesterday. At the end of the day we are here as a team so to take two wins out of the weekend is fantastic as we are now right back in the team’s championship race.” FIA GT CHAMPIONSHIP – Round 6 (Part 2) – Bucharest, Romania – 24 August 2008 GT2 RACE RESULT ENDS |
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