The 2007
FIA GT Championship battle will go all the way down to the wire following victory for Mike Hezemans and Jean-Denis Deletraz in France, with as many as nine drivers still in with a shout of lifting the GT1 end-of-season laurels at the finale in Zolder in three weeks' time.
Indeed, the Carsport Holland duo overcame a troubled qualifying session that had left them sitting down in tenth position on the starting grid with a consistent drive to seal their second triumph of the season following that in July's Spa 24 Hours.
Second and third for the twin Vitaphone Racing Team Maserati MC 12s – championship leader Thomas Biagi and Michael Bartels critically coming home just under five seconds ahead of the sister machine of Christian Montanari and Miguel Ramos – was enough to secure a third consecutive GT1 teams' title for the German outfit.
Fourth place fell to Fabio Babini and Jamie Davies in their Aston Martin Racing BMS DBR9, with Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp fifth in the heavily-laden Jetalliance Aston Martin DBR9. Their front row-sitting team-mates Robert Lechner and Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer could ultimately manage no better than ninth.
In GT2 meanwhile, victory for the AF Corse Motorola #51
Ferrari 430 GT2 of Stéphane Ortelli and Gianmaria Bruni gave the Italian team its eighth win of the season, but with the sister car of championship leaders Dirk Müller and Toni Vilander stopping with mechanical problems and a fine second-place finish for Emmanuel Collard and Matteo Malucelli in the BMS Scuderia Italia Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, the scrap for honours is closer than ever. Third in GT2 at Nogaro went to Scuderia Ecosse and the #63 car of Robert Bell and Andrew Kirkaldy, despite having to start from the pit-lane following an engine change.
