Despite the best efforts of its drivers to throw away a possible win, the French Racing Box team secured victory in the second
FIA GT3 European Championship race at
Silverstone.
Andrea Ceccato brought the #27 Dodge Viper to the flag in second place but with team-mate Stefano Zonca hit with a penalty for an incident during the closing laps it was Ceccato and co-driver Stefano Livio who claimed the second win of the weekend.
While race one had been held on a damp but drying track, the start of race two saw rain still falling as the 38 cars headed for the line - two of Damax Ascari's having failed to even make it to the green light and the pole-sitting Porsche of Morgan Moullin Traffort one of two cars to start from the pitlane.
The missing Porsche meant it was the Viper of Frederic Makowieki who led the field away, but he soon slipped behind the Racing Box car of Marco Cioci as the #26 Viper moved into the lead. Marcello Zani in the BMS Scuderia Italia Aston Martin held third ahead of Steve Zacchia in another Viper while Allan Simonsen - the winner of race one - had produced a storming start to end lap one in fifth despite starting from 16th.
Eager to prove that Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen isn't the only 'Great Dane' around, Simonsen quickly moved past Zacchia into fourth and then, having challenged Zani into Priory, went round the outside of the third placed DBRS9 at Luffield to move into a podium position.
Clearly the man on the move, the Ferrari was soon hounding the rear of second placed Makowieki and Simonsen was soon through to chase down Cioci - taking the Viper on lap four to move into the lead.
While the Ferrari started to scamper away at the front, battles raged throughout the field, with Vipers featuring in the majority of them. Zacchia and Livio both overhauled Zani's DBRS9 in quick succession while former
BTCC racer Anthony Reid was - like the race leader - a man on a mission as he manoeuvred the lead Pouchelon Racing Viper through the heavy traffic towards the fringes of the top ten.
However, luck wasn't on the side of team-mate Rachel Green - who had produced an impressive stint in the car during race one before failing wet tyres saw her drop back from sixth place to finish twelfth - as contact with the Maserati Gransport Light of Diego Alessi saw her race end in the gravel trap at Becketts.
Also impressing during the opening stages was the sole remaining Ascari in the hands of Italian driver Luca Pirri. Having dropped back from sixth on the grid at the start, Pirri was bringing the KZ1R back up the order as he lapped in times second only to those set by Simonsen and took seventh past Zani - now going rapidly the wrong way down the order - on lap seven. However the good work the Damax newboy was doing would be undone a matter of corners later when he ran wide at Stowe and slipped back to ninth.
