The sixth round of the FIA GT3 European Championship season marks the end of a successful year in motorsports for Max Nilsson (SWE). The Swede is pleased with his performance, having scored three podium places and a victory in Navarra, Spain in May of this year. Sharing a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3 with Finnish driver Mika Vähämäki, he competed for the Czech HEICO Gravity Charouz team.
The final two races took place at the 5.137-km Nürburgring in Germany last weekend. The drivers and the team used the free practice sessions on Friday to determine the perfect set-up for the rather cold conditions at the track.
Considering the low temperatures, it was quite challenging to warm up the tires in the first qualifying session since there was a lot of traffic and Max Nilsson found only two laps for setting a fast time. The Swedish Mercedes Benz driver succeeded in securing start position 3 in the second row for the first race. His partner, Mika Vähämäki, took the same place in his qualifying session.
Max Nilsson started into the race on Saturday from P3 on the right side of the start straight. Having got stuck in a group of cars in the first right turn he had no chance to overtake any of them when the car in front of him braked. “I was pretty much stuck between the cars and could not overtake them because there was a car right beside me that blocked the line”, said Max Nilsson. As a result, he lost a few places after the start. Since the safety car was deployed due to a crash and did take up position at the front of the grid, he did not get a chance to attack again. Max Nilsson overtook Jerome Demay in the Audi R8 LMS after the restart and headed to the pit for the driver change in the following lap. The team did a fantastic job in the pit and gained valuable time. Consequently, the gull-winged car with Vähämäki at the wheel rejoined the race in P3. The Finn defended the place until the end of the race, securing a place on the podium and 15 points each for both drivers.
Turn one after the start was Mika Vähämaki’s downfall again in the race on Sunday. A Lamborghini Gallardo hit the right side of the Finn’s car. The lock of the door was damaged during that incident which caused the door to swing open. The driver completed an entire lap with the open gull wing door on his way back to the pit. As a result, he lost valuable time which Max Nilsson could not make up for after the mandatory pit stop. They finished the race in a disappointing P9. However, since the Stewards disqualified the AF Corse Ferrari (#150) due to a violation of the rules after the race, the final result was P8.
Looking back at the season, Max Nilsson is quite pleased. “The FIA GT3 European Championship was a strong championship with few cars but great drivers. I had a lot of fun. We could probably have done some things better and scored more points but motorsports is full of surprises which you just cannot prepare for. The HEICO Gravity Charouz team is one of the best teams I have ever worked with and our race engineer, Renaud Dufour, did a fantastic job with both cars. I wished there was a separate engineer for each of the team’s cars. Maybe that is something to consider for a future season.
The Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3 is a great car and ran well throughout the season. I secured places on the podium at the Dubai 24h as well as in the sprint races of the GT3 Championship with that car. It suits both types of races well. Now I just want to take a step back and relax for a few days before I start to think about next season”.
Source : Max Nilsson