2011 San Marino Grand Prix
| Race details | ||
|---|---|---|
| Race {{{Race_No}}} of the 2011 Superleague season | ||
| ||
| Date | July 7th, 2011 | |
| Official name | 2011 San Marino Grand Prix | |
| Location | Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari Imola, Italy | |
| Course | Permanent racing facility 3.065 mi / 4.933 km | |
| Distance | 62 laps, 189.897 mi / 305.609 km | |
| Weather | Sunny | |
| Pole position | ||
| Driver |  Lee Morris
|
Draig-Ferrari |
| Time | 1:20.461 | |
| Fastest Lap | ||
| Driver | Lee Morris
|
Draig-Ferrari |
| Time | 1:20.127 | |
| Podium | ||
| First | Lee Morris
|
Draig-Ferrari |
| Second |  Joe Consiglio
|
Nordsjoen-Mercedes |
| Third |  Pavel Loknovski
|
Nordsjoen-Mercedes |
The 2011 San Marino Grand Prix for the Superleague - the eleventh race of the season - will take place at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit at Imola on the 7th of July.
Contents
Report
After being pushed all the way for his win in Bahrain by the Red Archer Virtual Racing Team duo of Jason Muscat and David Jundt, Lee Morris no doubt would be hoping to be on his way to another win at the famous Imola circuit, in San Marino. The Draig Racing driver had extended his lead in the championship over his nearest rival Joe Consiglio, who had a more difficult race in the boiling temperatures of Bahrain, but hoped he and the Nordsjoen Racing team would rally together to produce a race winning performance.
A couple of driver changes had been made prior to the San Marino Grand Prix, with the impressive young Estonian, Pavel Loknovski getting the call-up from Nordsjoen team boss William Ponissi, in a move many called as only a matter of time, to replace previous driver Jyri Lylykorpi, whose new job forced out for the rest of the season. Loknovski has had an impressive debut season in the Supercup, and was snapped up as a test and reserve driver by Ponissi fairly early on in the year, and has unsurprisingly got a chance to drive for statistically the most successful team in GPVWC Superleague history.
A more familiar face in the form of Nikos Evangelidakis returned to the Superleague paddock to replace the absent Jason Muscat for Red Archer. Another familiar face in Ryan McConkey saw him lining up for Synergetic Motorsports in place of Sam Millar, and Petter Kaasa was ready to make his GPVWC Superleague debut, deputising for the absent Dave Carr-Smith for Midnight Motorsport. Ben Warren also returned for Nijo Racing to fill in for Abdel Damghi.
Qualifying
There were not too many surprises during qualifying, with Lee Morris taking pole position for Draig. It was no surprise seeing Joe Consiglio taking 2nd on the grid, 2 tenths behind his championship rival. Williamson Dynamics driver Ojay Clark spoiled the norm though, taking an impressive 3rd place on the grid, ahead of David Jundt in 4th, and Pavel Loknovski 5th. The Midnight Motorsport team took 6th and 7th on the grid, Rowland and Kaasa respectively, with Ryan Walker 8th, Bart De Vos 9th, and Mark Stanton rounding out the top ten for Constant Racing. Woods Racing and their difficult season continued on, with Mark Wicks lining up 13th, and teammate Kieran Ryan 16th.
Race
The start of the race was relatively clean apart from some minor scuffles in the midfield, but up front, it was Consiglio who easily made the best start of the leaders, blasting past Morris who dropped down to 2nd. David Jundt moved up to 3rd, closely followed by Loknovski in 4th and Ojay Clark who slipped to 5th. The top 5 quickly seemed to separate from the rest of the field, and other than a daring move from Ojay Clark on Loknovski to move himself up to 4th place, everyone else held station initially, although Morris was closely hounding leader Consiglio, with Jundt, Clark and Loknovski all keeping a close eye on proceedings. As the race began to shape itself, the top 2 slowly but surely started to pull away from the Jundt, Clark and Loknovski battle. Right at the end of Lap 4, leader Consiglio nearly lost the rear, compromising his exit onto the start/finish straight, and Morris had a straightforward pass to put himself into the lead. Lap 7, and Loknovski found his way back past Clark for 4th place, and quickly started hounding Jundt for 3rd place. Sure enough, just a lap later Loknovski made a brave move on the outside of Turn 1 around Jundt and took away 3rd place.
Slightly further down, an interesting battle between Nick Rowland and Bart De Vos was developing, for 6th place, and with the squabble for 3rd place raging, both had now moved onto the back of it, making it a 5 way battle for 3rd, with Petter Kaasa not far behind. Back up front, Joe Consiglio was surpisingly able to make his way back past Morris and into the lead in sector 3. The 2 championship leaders continued to battle, with the impressive Loknovski in 3rd, who had now built a 2 second gap between himself and 4th placed Clark, who in turn had pulled a small gap out from the battling Rowland, Jundt, De Vos and Kaasa. Moving further into the race, thoughts began to turn towards pit strategies. With Imola not being a track particularly hard on it's tyres, most people expected the front runners to be 2 stopping.
The first of the front runners to pit was Ojay Clark on Lap 16, which perhaps hinted at a 3 stopper for the WD driver, but did go with the 2 stopper in the end. Morris meanwhile had taken the lead back from Consiglio on Lap 18, and proceeded to put in fastest lap after fastest lap before making his first pitstop on Lap 22, with Consiglio pitting 2 laps earlier. Pavel Loknovski was the last of the front runners to stop, pitting on Lap 23. Once all the stops were completed, it was clear that the fast laps Morris had put in on low fuel once Consiglio had pitted were very helpful, and Morris had now built up a 5 second lead over the Maltese driver. In fact, Loknovski had rejoined in 3rd, but now barely a second behind his far more experienced teammate, and surprisingly stuck with him throughout the next stint. With Morris looking comfortable in the lead, the Nordsjoen cars settled in 2nd and 3rd, David Jundt was running 4th for Red Archer, with Rowland, Clark and De Vos not far behind, but all with around a 2 second gap between each other.
The second stint for all the driver's was relatively quiet, but further down the order, a strange incident between Mark Stanton, and a recovering Kieran Ryan who was a lap down on the Constant Racing driver, saw Ryan unlapping himself, then losing control of the car, sadly putting Stanton into the wall, costing him his front wing.Moving to the halfway point of the race, and a battle for 3rd was raging between Loknovski, Jundt and Rowland, with the Swiss driver Jundt looking at every possible avenue to try and overtake Loknovski, but all the while having to watch his mirrors in case Rowland decided to try and sneak through. Lap 34, and Jundt was able to find his way through for 3rd, and began to pull away from the Estonian driver who was displaced, and moved down to 4th. Lap 37, and Consiglio lost 7 seconds from Morris after making a slight error, and now Morris had a comfortable 12 second lead, whilst Jundt now found himself just a few seconds behind the Nordsjoen driver. Lap 39, and Nick Rowland made his second and final pitstop, after troubling Loknovski for 4th place, leaving the Estonian to put in some good laptimes on low fuel, as he and leader Morris would be the last of the front runners to complete their pitstops.
A lap later, Rowland and Ojay Clark had a coming together which saw the Midnight Motorsport driver serve a drive-through penalty for his troubles. This certainly was not the last time those two drivers would be mixing it up on track together. With all the pitstops completed, Morris looked home and dry in the lead, but things were a tad closer in the battle for 2nd place, with Consiglio having a later stopping Jundt rejoin right behind him, with teammate Loknovski just a second back. However, the Maltese driver stayed calm under pressure, and slowly stretched out a gap over Jundt, allowing the other Nordsjoen to close in on to try and retake the 3rd position he'd lost earlier. The battle sadly became a bit of an anti-climax after Jundt ran wide at Piratella, allowing Loknovski through into 3rd place. All three drivers would remain in their positions for the remainder of the race. The action behind certainly was not over though, and a very heated battle between Rowland and Clark continued to rage on, with Triple-Double Racing driver Bart De Vos just ahead of them in 5th.
On track, it was Clark who prevailed, but in the stewards room at the end of the race, the Williamson Dynamics driver was disqualified from the race for repeatedly cutting certain parts of the track. A disappointing outcome for the young Englishman after a promising qualifying and start of the race. Avoiding all the controversy behind him, Lee Morris cruised to another win for himself and Draig Racing, strengthening his stranglehold on the Driver's Championship even more, ahead of championship rival Joe Consiglio who had to settled once again for 2nd place, over half a minute behind Morris. A close battle almost all race long between Loknovski and Jundt ended with the former taking a very impressive podium on his debut, giving Nordsjoen 2nd and 3rd in the race. Jundt took 4th place, finishing just half a second behind the Estonian. Other than a few brief battles involving Rowland and Clark, Bart De Vos had a relatively trouble free run to 5th place. With Clark's result being removed from the official standings, it was Nick Rowland who would take 6th place for Midnight, ahead of Mark Wicks in 7th, debut points for Rowland's temporary teammate Kaasa in 8th, Phil Perkins 9th, and Christoph Lichtenstein taking the final point for Synergetic Motorsport in 10th position.
Classification
Qualifying
Race
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Pitstops | Fastlap | Controller | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 | Lee Morris
|
Draig-Ferrari | 62 | 1:24:53.672 | 1 | 2 | 01:20.127 | 
|
15 |
| 2 | 2 | Joe Consiglio
|
Nordsjoen-Mercedes | 62 | +32.909s | 2 | 2 | 01:21.016 |
|
12 |
| 3 | 0 | Pavel Loknovski
|
Nordsjoen-Mercedes | 62 | +38.045s | 5 | 2 | 01:20.794 | 
|
10 |
| 4 | 6 |  David Jundt
|
Red Archer-Renault | 62 | +38.562s | 4 | 2 | 01:20.915 |
|
8 |
| 5 | 23 |  Bart De Vos
|
TDR-Toyota | 62 | +1:04.212 | 9 | 2 | 01:21.106 | 
|
6 |
| 6 | 25 | Nick Rowland
|
Midnight-Renault | 62 | +1:14.159 | 6 | 4 | 01:21.189 |
|
5 |
| 7 | 3 | Mark Wicks
|
Woods-Mercedes | 61 | +1 Lap | 14 | 2 | 01:22.632 |
|
4 |
| 8 | 24 |  Petter Kaasa
|
Midnight-Renault | 61 | +1 Lap | 7 | 4 | 01:21.445 |
|
3 |
| 9 | 22 | Phil Perkins
|
TDR-Toyota | 60 | +2 Laps | 11 | 3 | 01:22.464 |
|
2 |
| 10 | 9 |  Christoph Lichtenstein
|
Synergetic-Ferrari | 60 | +2 Laps | 13 | 3 | 01:22.834 |
|
1 |
| 12 | 17 | David Stanton
|
ST-BMW | 60 | +2 Laps | 12 | 3 | 01:23.575 |
|
0 |
| 13 | 21 | Chris Williamson
|
Nijo-Toyota | 58 | +4 Laps | 22 | 2 | 01:25.182 |
|
0 |
| 14 | 20 | Ben Warren
|
Nijo-Toyota | 58 | +4 Laps | 20 | 3 | 01:24.284 |
|
0 |
| 15 | 16 | Mark Fuller
|
ST-BMW | 57 | +5 Laps | 23 | 8 | 01:24.536 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 7 | Mark Stanton
|
Constant-Renault | 42 | DNF | 10 | 3 | 01:22.850 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 4 |  Kieran Ryan
|
Woods-Mercedes | 41 | DNF | 16 | 3 | 01:23.292 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 12 |  Ben Morgan
|
Computrac-BMW | 31 | DNF | 15 | 5 | 01:23.252 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 11 | Gavin Thomas
|
Computrac-BMW | 25 | DNF | 19 | 1 | 01:24.618 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 5 |  Nikos Evangelidakis
|
Red Archer-Renault | 21 | DNF | 18 | 1 | 01:22.682 | 
|
0 |
| Ret | 10 |  Ryan McConkey
|
Synergetic-Ferrari | 5 | DNF | 17 | 0 | 01:24.173 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 18 | Tim-Oliver Wagner
|
Williamson-Mercedes | 3 | DNF | 21 | 0 | 01:26.861 |
|
0 |
| Ret | 15 |  Ryan Walker
|
Draig-Ferrari | 1 | DNF | 8 | 0 | 01:29.776 |
|
0 |
| DSQ | 19 | Ojay Clark
|
Williamson-Mercedes | 62 | Disqualified† | 3 | 2 | 01:21.061 |
|
0 |
† Ojay Clark finished 6th but was disqualified from the race for excessive corner-cutting. Positions behind him were therefore promoted by one place.
Standings after the Race
|
|
External Links
| Preceded by: 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix |
2011 San Marino Grand Prix 2011 |
Succeeded by: 2011 Turkish Grand Prix |
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