News Archive » Nogaro Preview

September 29, 2008

The FIA GT Championship arrives in south-west France this weekend at the Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro. Andrew Kirkaldy and Rob Bell took a third place finish at Nogaro last year, the first time the championship visited the French track, whilst Tim Mullen was right behind them in fourth.

The CR Scuderia team has made a change to its driver line-up for the next two events as Chris Niarchos has some longstanding business commitments. Andrea Piccini, who raced for the team at the Spa 24 Hours, will stand in for Chris in CRS Ferrari no.55 at Nogaro. For the following race at Zolder, James Sutton, one of the team’s British GT drivers and reserve driver at Spa, will step up to the FIA GT Championship.

“I would love to race at Nogaro and Zolder myself but I will be away on business,” said Chris. “However this presents CRS with a fantastic opportunity to fight even harder for second place in the teams’ championship. Andrea and James will definitely increase our chances of catching BMS in the points tables. Andrea’s performance at Spa was exceptional so he was an obvious choice for the Nogaro race. We are especially excited about James, who was the ultimate professional at Spa, as we want to include him in more of CRS’ activities in the future.”

Rob Bell is back onboard CRS Ferrari no.56 for the first time since winning the Le Mans Series GT2 title for the second year in succession. He and Andrew Kirkaldy will be looking to repeat the success they had the last time they drove together, in Bucharest where they won both races.

“Last year was my first time at Nogaro and a! lso the first time I raced with Andrew. We had to start from the pit lane but we had a good run, we were both quick, and we got a podium finish. It’s a tight, compact circuit and it has its own challenges. There’s no reason why we can’t go and get a good result there.”

Nogaro is a standard two-day race weekend for the FIA GT teams so practice and qualifying take place on Saturday, prior to the two-hour race on Sunday lunchtime.

OTHER NEWS…
Even though most of the CRS team will be in France this weekend they will be keeping a watchful eye on what is going on at Petit Le Mans, one of America’s biggest sportscar races. CRS British GT driver Luke Hines will be racing an Intersport Lola in the LMP1 class alongside Ryan Lewis, whilst Dirk Müller is fighting for the GT2 championship in the Tafel Ferrari 430; and Cobra-sponsored Jonny Cocker continues his campaign, alongside Lord Paul Drayson and Darren Turner, in the GT2 Barwell Aston Martin Vantage.

USEFUL INFORMATION

FIA GT Championship – Round 8 – Nogaro, France – 5 October 2008

TIMETABLE
(all times local)

SATURDAY
0830-0950 Free Practice
1100-1220 Pre-Qualifying
1645-1720 Qualifying

SUNDAY
0840-0910 Warm Up
1315-1515 Race

TELEVISION SCHEDULE
The FIA GT Championship is broadcast in the UK on Motors TV with highlights programming on Sky Sports and Channel 4. Please check TV listings on the day for up-to-date transmission times.

LIVE TIMING
For all the timesheets and live timing from the FIA GT race meetings please go to http://www.mstworld.com/msportrounds.aspx?year=2.

ENDS

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