Paolo Ruberti's balance at the end of the 2012 season

Four wins and three podiums out of eight races, which have to be added to the two pole positions to round up Paolo Ruberti's scoreboard in the FIA WEC 2012. An almost perfect season then, with the only disappointment coming from the Le Mans race where he did not finish due to technical problems.

#88 Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 RSR: Christian Ried, Gianluca Roda, Paolo Ruberti

Photo by: James M. Holland

Unfortunately the French 24 Hours and its double score played a crucial role in the LMGTE Am classification where the Italian driver and his team mates Gianluca Roda and Christian Ried ended in second place with 153 points, 26 short of the winning team Larbre Competition.

2012 regulations, that will change next year, awards the LMGTE Am title only to teams considering the sum of the best results obtained by every team during the season. This formula ended up by penalyzing Team Felbermayr-Proton, as they lined up only one Porsche 997 and therefore was disadvantaged as other teams took on track more lineups.

Ruberti, Roda and Ried totalled anyway the highest number of points and virtually obtained the drives title that will be out for contention next year.

Paolo Ruberti: "Four wins and three podiums in eighth races are quite a positive result, especially in a prestigious championship like FIA WEC. We are a bit sorry for not scoring points in Le Mans which was an heavy burden in our classification but this does not spoil a season to be put into a frame.

""It is a shame that the series did not feature a drivers classification which would have given us the LMGTE Am title: this will be added next year, which will add a further reason to compete in FIA WEC also in 2013. Meanwhile I would like to thank my team mates, Lele Saldarini that helped us quite a lot with his work and his advice in crucial moments, and to the whole Team Felbermayr-Proton".

Paolo Ruberti