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| Season 2007 > News |
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Between the FIA GT meetings in Adria and Brno Jos Menten has once more managed to slot in an ADAC GT Masters race. The 26 year old Dutchman has once again reinforced Hans Reiter’s troops in the Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo, bearing number 7. In East Germany Menten replaced Gianni Morbidelli. This ex F1 driver is usually the regular team mate of championship leader Christopher Haase, but the Italian had alternative commitments with Audi in the Italian Superstar championship. “Those two victories in Zolder left me wanting more”, Menten smiled just before the start of the weekend.
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This is the ADAC GT Masters fifth and penultimate weekend. However … the Sachsenring is unknown territory for Jos Menten and Christopher Haase: “Neither Christopher nor I have driven on the Sachsenring. It’s therefore going to be important for us to become acclimatised with this circuit as soon as possible. Christopher is heading up the championship so we need to grab as many points as possible”, Menten remarked on Friday just before the start of the free practice session. Finally the duo had to give in a second to Peter Kox in the first session, and Menten and Haase completed the top five. In the second session they are already faster. The gap with team mate Peter Kox and Albert von Thurn und Taxis is reduced to a mere half second, and good for a second best time.
In the first qualifying session, reserved for the ‘B-drivers’, Menten’s team mate Haase snatches pole position. The ideal start for the first race. In the second qualifying session Jos Menten tries to emulated his team mate on a drying track, but in the end the driver from Haelen has to content himself with a fifth place on the grid: “I set my lap times at the beginning of the session. At the end I tried to attack once again, but went off through the grass, and didn’t have the opportunity to improve on my best time”, he commented from the Reiter Engineering pit box.
On Saturday Christopher Haase took the start of the first race. The German gets away clearly from pole and builds up a healthy lead. Halfway through the race Jos Menten takes over the wheel: “And just like in Zolder all I had to do was bring the car to the finish. Christopher made all the difference in that first half hour. In the end I had to keep an eye on Peter, who was pushing hard … but victory couldn’t escape us.”
The second race on Sunday is a less fortunate story. The number seven Lamborghini Gallardo cannot reach the grid in time. This resulted in Jos Menten having to take the start from the back of the grid: “I was finally able to climb up into second place during my stint, some ten seconds behind Peter Kox. I gave my all, and knowing that Christopher is the fastest of the ‘B-drivers’, we still had a good chance of overall victory. But during my in lap one of the wheel hubs gave up the ghost. End of story...”
Unfortunately no champagne four times in a row for Jos Menten and Christopher Haase, but at least in the first race ten points were won going towards the championship. After the zero score in the second race Haase’s lead now stands at eleven points ahead of Peter Kox and Albert von Thurn und Taxis. There are still twenty points to be won at Hockenheim. This last weekend Reiter Engineering has already assured itself of the team title.
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16-09-2007 |
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