The International GT Open returned to Italy this weekend for the penultimate round of the 2010 series. After racing at Imola in May, the circuit of choice this time was Monza, the home of the Italian Grand Prix and the spiritual home of Ferrari’s loyal fans.
CRS Racing’s Adam Christodoulou had a lot on his shoulders this weekend: racing a Ferrari for the first time and at Monza, also for the first time. The young Briton excelled himself though and, along with Tim Mullen, bagged a podium finish in Sunday afternoon’s race.
The weekend got off to a damp start as both of Friday’s free practice sessions were run in wet conditions. With no dry running under their belts the teams went into Saturday’s sunny qualifying sessions blind but Adam did a great job, matching the seventh place that Tim took for race one.
The first race took place on Saturday afternoon. Tim took the start in the No.91 CRS Ferrari in 8th and did his usual good job, despite struggling a little with the car’s handling. Adam then jumped in and brought the Ferrari home in eighth place.
The start of race two today was down to Adam in the No.91 car. Adam started from 7th on the grid and he had a great run, all the way up to 4th place by lap 5, handing over to Tim mid race and finishing 3rd taking the fourth podium finish of 2010 for the No.91 CRS Ferrari.
“It was a better weekend than Brands Hatch, that’s for sure,” said CRS MD, Mark Busfield. “Adam adapted very quickly to the team and to the car and got up to the level he needed to be at very quickly indeed. I’m very pleased to see Tim and Adam on the podium here.”
“It’s been a great opportunity to be working with the CRS team again,” said Adam. “It was a tough start to the weekend not getting any dry running before qualifying, and I was defiantly thrown in the deep end, but the whole team worked extremely hard during the weekend and after race one on Saturday evening. The hard work and commitment from the team has shown in race two, every time I jumped in the car it felt better and I drove faster, and to walk away with a podium on my first experience back with the team is fantastic.”