Well, we got three entrants for this race so it will go ahead.
The 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix marked the end of the second season for the WSRC league. The weekend got off to a poor start when Diogo Vincenzi's Audi suffered a right rear suspension failure and spun off the track, hitting the barriers hard. Minutes later, the VodBul of Dave Carr-Smith suffered the same issue and suffered a horrendous accident at the beginning of the main straight. It began to look as if the failures were caused by the bumpiness of the circuit itself, and not driver error.
On Saturday morning, the teams wrote to the WSRC governing body and the event organisers saying they could not guarantee the safety of their vehicles at this circuit in their present configuration. However, the problem could not be resolved and only Team Raltwest and HSV's Matt Finlay chose to remain for the event.
Qualifying got underway as usual although with the cars seriously reducing their track time. Bruno Castello set the pole with a terrific lap of 1:08.520, ahead of his team-mate Nick van der Voort with a 1:08.728. It looked as if there may be a race between the two for the victory. Matt Finlay chose not to go out and settled for third on the grid.
At the start, Castello got a great start and moved ahead to cut off his teammate before the first turn. Van der Voort however was able to slipstream past into turn three at the end of the straight. Finlay was already being left behind and it became clear that HSV were only entered as there was a chance of improving its championship position.
Castello took the lead back at the end of lap three and this time held onto it through the pitstops and was ultimately 2.7 seconds ahead of van der Voort when the second Raltwest suddenly slowed, blue smoke drifting from the exhausts. A rare failure for the Raltwest team then, and it left Castello with an unchallenged victory. Finlay cruised home to second place and with 75% of the race completed, van der Voort came in third.
Final Classification:
1. Bruno Castello
Raltwest................13:09.928
2. Matt Finlay
Holden.........................13.52.386
3. Nick van der Voort
Raltwest...........DNF
****************
Final Championship Placings
Drivers1. Diogo Vincenzi - Audi...............................124
2. Bruno Castello - Raltwest........................74
3. Matt Finlay - Holden.................................53
4. Tom Matthews - KDR................................46
5. Dave Carr-Smith - Vodbul.........................33
6. Jorge Caranti - KDR..................................20
7. Matthew Green - Audi..............................13
=. Nick van der Voort - Raltwest...................13
9. Ivan Cantero - VodBul..............................10
10. Kyle Schroeder - Rhino...............................9
=. Flavio Santos - Raltwest............................9
= . Dean Kittleson - Holden.............................9
13. Reece Byrne - Holden...............................7
14. Adam Rouse - Vodafone-Audi...................3
15. Laurent Keersmaekers..............................0
=. Tom Pell - Ford..........................................0
=. Simon Heywood - Whiplash........................0
=. Ricardo Padrela - Rhino...............................0
=. Michael Adeneken - Eclipse.........................0
Constructors Championship
1. Audi Motorsports..................137
2. Raltwest Honda......................96
3. Holden Motorsport.................69
4. KDR-Porsche...........................66
5. Vodafone Audi........................31
6. Vodbul......................................14
7. Rhino Racing.............................9
8. Eclipse Motorsports..................0
=. Whiplash Racing.......................0
Conference to follow shortly
Thankyou to everyone who participated in this season. I hope we can have a good break now and come back strong for next season!
Thanks again ;D