EU3: Silverstone: Fischer Racing weekend summary

Satisfying FIA GT3 debut for Fischer Racing

Fischer Racing started with a promising weekend into the 2009 FIA GT3 European championship. For the first time Fischer Racing joined the highly competitive European championship with two Ford GT at this weekend season opener at Silverstone.

In the first race on Saturday, Florian Gruber (26, Germany) and Christopher Nygaard (23, Denmark) missed only briefly a podium finish. Nygaard started with the Ford GT from fifth position of the grid and handed over the more than 500 hp strong Ford GT on seventh position to team colleague Gruber. The 26-year-old Gruber gained three positions during his stint and crossed the finish line on fourth position, scoring first points in the European championship for Fischer Racing. "In the beginning of the race, I had some bad oversteering, but Florian drove a great stint and brought the car home in a very good fourth position", young Dane Christoffer Nygaard was happy with the result of his first European race.

Meanwhile, in the second Fischer-Ford GT, Christian Hohenadel (32, Germany) and sportscar veteran Harald Becker (55, Germany) cased trough the field. Hohenadel/ Becker started from position 32 and forged ahead up to position twelve until the end of the 60-minute race.

Bad luck followed Saturday's good results in the second race on Sunday. Nygaard/Gruber drove once more a good race, starting driver Florian Gruber passed seven competitors already in the very first lap. "I have used every gap which opened to me," Gruber said about his starting laps. Until the last minutes of the race, his team mate Nygaard was in promising forth position. Then Nygaard had to serve a stop&go-penalty in the final minutes of the race. The mandatory pitstop of Gruber/Nygaard was one second too quick, therefore Nygaard had to come in again and finally finished ninth.

"The stop&go penalty in the end was really bad luck, this cost us valuable points. Our car was very good this weekend, the tyres were very consistent and with the very good brake of our Ford GT we could gain some positions" said Florian Gruber.

Becker/Hohenadel were far from being satisfied on Sunday. Hohenadel handed over Ford GT on ninth position to Becker, when a competitor suddenly went without any braking into the back of the Fischer-Ford GT. Both vehicles retired severely damaged, Becker remained uninjured. "Out of a the blue a Porsche crashed into my car," Becker explained the heavy accident. "However, up to light concussion, I'm o.k."

In both races the Fischer Racing-Ford GT of Nygaard/Gruber was the quickest Ford team and took victory twice in the Ford makes cup.

Team principal Hardy Fischer had a mixed feeling after the first weekend of his team in European competition: "I see the weekend with laughing and a crying eye. Our two "youngsters" had two very good races. Without the stop&go penalty we would have gone twice on place four. Our second really had bad luck when, but without the crash it was also in position to archive a top result.

After Silverstone there is no time for a rest as Fischer Racing is headed to the Netherlands for the second race of the ADAC GT Masters at Assen.

-credit: fischer-racingteam.de