Westbook denied top result in Belgium

Richard Westbrook was denied at least a top-two finish in the penultimate round of the FIA GT Championship on Sunday when an errant rival punted his co-driver into the gravel.

British works Porsche driver Westbrook and Emmanuel Collard were heading for another excellent result at Zolder in Belgium when the Frenchman was savaged by a Ferrari. But they still managed to salvage fourth place after Collard rejoined the circuit. Zolder is home ground for Westbrook’s team, Prospeed Competition, which has fielded the Londoner to two FIA GT wins this season with its Porsche 997 GT3-RSR.

And the circuit, which hosted the Belgian Grand Prix most years from 1973 to 1984 and is in the Flemishspeaking part of the country, is also familiar to Richard from his days in the junior single-seater categories.

“We got to grips with the circuit really well,” he said. “We found a good set-up and we were confident for qualifying. This time ‘Manu’ took a turn to qualify and he did a great job and stuck it on the front row. Considering we were carrying so much success ballast from winning the previous race at Nogaro we were delighted, and we could have been on pole if the yellow flags hadn’t come out on his quickest lap.

”Westbrook took the race start, and immediately grabbed the lead. “We decided to take a gamble and start on the softer Michelins, and along with Gianmaria Bruni, who was behind me, we pulled out a big gap on the rest of the field. The tyres started to grain quite badly after a while but I was still leading up to the first pitstop.

”Collard drove the middle stint and, after a longer refuel than the Bruni/Toni Vilander Ferrari, he rejoined in second place. “We were on a different strategy to them,” said Richard, “but we were confident we could close the gap again with a shorter refuel at the second stop. But then ‘Manu’ got punted off with a bad mistake by Jamie Davies (who was penalised with a stop-go penalty) in the Ferrari. He had to do a U-turn in the gravel and that lost us a lot of time.

”The Prospeed Porsche rejoined fourth, and that’s where it remained after Westbrook took over for the final stint. “We caught up a lot to the second and third-placed cars, but there was nothing we could do.

“Still, that’s racing. FIA GT races may be two hours but they’re really tough and close. And it was still a good result for the team – to be honest our main target now is to take second place in the teams’ championship.

”Whether that happens will be resolved in the final race of the season on November 23 in an unusual location: Argentina’s San Luis circuit, which is built in an extinct volcano! “We’re really looking forward to that, and we should have a good chance because we’ve been the in-form team since the Spa 24 Hours in late July. We’ve just been unlucky.”

• fiazol