FIA GT1 World Championship
Zolder (BEL), April 8th-10 th, 2011

The weather conditions for the second race of the FIA GT1 World Championship were ideal: sunny, air temperatures of up to 20°C.

After competing in the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670 R-SV for Swiss Racing Team in Abu Dhabi (UAE) in March, the latest race took place in Zolder, Belgium. The track is new for Max Nilsson in the FIA GT1. Therefore, the Swede intended to complete a lot of kilometres in order to get to know the track. Due to a failure in the gearbox he only completed a few laps in Friday’s free practice session. The team worked through the night trying to repair the gearbox for the pre-qualifying session.

Nilsson was able to complete a few laps in the pre-qualifying and then handed the car over to his partner Jiri Janak (CZE). Both had problems handling the car, the lap times did not even come close to those of their competitors. The team located a broken part at the rear stabiliser bar. Therefore he was not able to show good results.

Max Nilsson competed in qualifying 1 but did not reach Q2 because his tyre pressure was not ideal and the rear stabiliser bar broke again. It was frustrating for the Swede that the part broke twice this weekend. Consequently, his colleague, Janak, could not participate in Q2. This resulted in start position 18, row 9 for the qualifying race. Janak started in the qualifying race and managed good lap times, gaining a few places. A quick pit stop after the first half of the race did not result in a better place because Nilsson for some technical reasons was not able to start the engine properly when starting from the pit. Afterwards the Swede reached good lap times and fought hard for a better place. He drove across the finish line in a very good 8th place.

However, team Nilsson/Janak was not able to build upon this good place in Sunday’s main race. Shortly before the start the team noticed that the oil pump created no pressure. And there was not enough time to replace it before the start of the race.

Thus, a disappointed Max Nilsson watched the main race from the stands. „It was a bad weekend for me. My car was not working at all and I was not able to really drive it. I was only able to drive good times in the qualifying race but it was not enough to have fun and be successful. I hope that the team will be able to repair the car and that we will do some tests before the next race in Portimao.”

The next race will take place in Portimao (POR) from May 6th to 8th.