Le Castellet circuit map Formula One 2018 without corner names English 29 06 2021

The 2010 FIA GT1 Paul Ricard round was an auto racing event held at the Paul Ricard HTTT, Le Castellet,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

on 2–4 June. The Paul Ricard event was the fourth round of the

2010 FIA GT1 World Championship season The 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship was the inaugural FIA GT1 World Championship, a motor racing competition reserved for FIA GT1 cars. The championship was a replacement for the FIA GT Championship which had been held annually from 1997 to 200 ...

. The circuit had previously been utilized by the FIA as a test circuit for all manufacturers as part of FIA GT1's balance of performance, and was also used by the

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

. Support series for the event include the

FIA GT3 European Championship The FIA GT3 European Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) and regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It was a championship derived from the international FIA ...

, the

GT4 European Cup The GT4 European Series is a sports car championship created and organised by SRO Motorsports Group. It is a pro/am championship which utilizes SRO GT4 class cars, and runs alongside the GT World Challenge Europe as a support series. History Fo ...

, and the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo.

Background

After three rounds of the championship,

Romain Grosjean Romain David Jeremie Grosjean (; born 17 April 1986) is a French and Swiss racing driver, who competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship for Lamborghini and serves as a reserve driver in the IndyCar Series for Prema. Grosjean competed under ...

and

Thomas Mutsch Thomas Mutsch (born 2 April 1979) is a German racecar driver. His first success was a third place in the 1993 German karting championship. Two years later, in 1995, Mutsch finished second in the Formula Renault 1800. In 1999, Mutsch reached seco ...

of Matech once again lead the Drivers Championship for the first time since their victory in

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most popu ...

to start the season. Grosjean and Mutsch lead the

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National Pictures, First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc sys ...

pair of

Michael Bartels Michael Bartels (born 8 March 1968) is a German professional racing driver. He is a multiple FIA GT champion and former Grand Prix driver who attempted to qualify for four races in with Lotus. Career Bartels was the 1985 German karting champ ...

and

Andrea Bertolini Andrea Bertolini (born 1 December 1973, in Sassuolo) is an Italian professional racing driver currently driving for AF Corse in the FIA World Endurance Championship. He is the official test driver of the Maserati factory. Bertolini began racing a ...

by twelve points. In the Teams Championship however it is Vitaphone who are on top but are carrying only a four-point margin over Matech. Also, following a fire at

Silverstone Silverstone is a village and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England. The village is about south-southwest of Towcester and northeast of Brackley, both accessed via the A43 road, A43 main ...

, Phoenix is once again down to a single Corvette, reducing the series grid to 23. Defending GT1 class race winner

Enrique Bernoldi Enrique Antônio Langue e Silvério de Bernoldi (; born 19 October 1978) is a Brazilian professional racing driver who raced for the Arrows Formula One team in 2001 and 2002, and was the test driver for British American Racing (later Honda) be ...

, who won the 2009 FIA GT event in a Corvette, is also part of the 2010 field with Vitaphone Maserati. Following the previous round in Brno, performance balancing modifications were published by the FIA which affected four manufacturers. The affected four,

Corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloo ...

Maserati Maserati S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury vehicle manufacturer. Established on 1 December 1914 in Bologna, Italy, the company's headquarters are now in Modena, and its emblem is a trident. The company has been owned by Stellantis since 2021. Ma ...

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

, and

Aston Martin Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC () is a British manufacturer of Luxury car, luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Headed from 1947 by David Brown (entrepreneur ...

, all had weight added to their minimum requirement in order to retard their performance potential, with Maserati having the most dramatic change with added to their minimum. Further, the Fords also had their

air restrictor A restrictor plate or air restrictor is a device installed at the intake of an engine to limit its power. This kind of system is occasionally used in road vehicles (e.g., motorcycles) for insurance purposes, but mainly in automobile racing, to li ...

s reduced in size in order to decrease engine power. In addition to performance balancing weight additions, four teams had success ballast further added following their performances at the Brno round. Brno Championship Racing winners

and

in the No. 5 Matech Ford will carry of ballast for the second time this season, while the No. 7 Young Driver Aston Martin, No. 13 Phoenix Corvette, and No. 23

Sumo Power Sumo Power is a British car tuning company based in Rye, East Sussex, England. Founded in 2002, Sumo Power specializes in custom tuning Japanese imports, including the Nissan Skyline GT-R and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, as well as the imp ...

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

are also carrying with ballast.

Qualifying

drivers

and

earned their second consecutive

pole position In a motorsports race, the pole position is usually the best and "statistically the most advantageous" starting position on the track. The pole position is usually earned by the driver with the best qualifying times in the trials before the ra ...

in FIA GT1 by setting a lap time over half a second faster than any other competitor in the third qualifying session.

Peter Kox Petrus Dionysius Lambertus Theodorus Kox (born 23 February 1964 in Eindhoven) is a racing driver from the Netherlands. Kox began racing in karts in 1978, winning five titles until 1982. In 1983 he moved to automobiles, winning the Marlboro For ...

and

Christopher Haase Christopher Haase (born 26 September 1987 in Kulmbach) is a German professional racing driver. He currently competes in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with Audi customer team Tresor Attempto Racing. Among his most notable successes a ...

gave

Lamborghini Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. ( , ), usually referred to as Lamborghini or colloquially Lambo, is an Italian manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its su ...

their first front row start in FIA GT1 by taking second.

Qualifying result

For qualifying, Driver 1 participates in the first and third sessions while Driver 2 participates in only the second session. The fastest lap for each session is indicated with bold.

Races

Qualifying race

Race result

Championship Race

Race result

References

External links

Paul Ricard GT1 Race in France – FIA GT1 World Championship
{{Sportscar Race Report , Year_of_race = 2010 , Sportscar_Series = FIA GT1 World Championship , Previous_race_in_season =

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

, Next_race_in_season =

Spa-Francorchamps The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (), informally referred to as Spa, is a motor-racing circuit located in Francorchamps, Stavelot, Wallonia, Belgium, about southeast of Spa. It is the current venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix, ho ...

Paul Ricard Paul Louis Marius Ricard (; July 9, 1909 – November 7, 1997) was a French industrialist and creator of an eponymous pastis brand which merged in 1975 with its competitor Pernod to create Pernod Ricard. Ricard was also an environmentalist and t ...

FIA GT1