Aberdeen’s Ryan Sharp, who travelled to Italy for the second round of the FIA World GT Championship leading the series after dominating the opening race at Silverstone, suffered a nightmare weekend at Adria near Venice.
The Scot, partnered by Austrian former Formula 1 racer Karl Wendlinger, had qualified on pole position but were then relegated to the back of the grid after their KplusK Saleen was disqualified for an aerodynamic infringement.
Worse though was to follow when the Saleen ground to a halt on the opening lap of the race after suffering a driveshaft failure.
“That was an absolute nightmare,” Sharp admitted afterwards. “The car went brilliantly in qualifying, but then to fail scrutineering with the aero problem was a major blow. We’re not sure what happened but I know the team will check everything out.
“We started the race though with a strategy which we believed would still get us into the points, but the driveshaft failure on the opening lap put paid to that. It’s a big blow to our championship hopes but we’ll be back ready to race in the next round.”
After two hours and 896 laps, the race was won by the Maserati of reigning champions Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini. The pair won by 10 seconds from the PK Corvette of Anthony Kumpen and Mike Hezemans.
JM