The third round of the FIA GT3 European Championship took place in conjunction with the FIA GT1 World Championship in Navarra (Northern Spain) last weekend. Winning a place on the podium for the very first time in this championship, the weekend was a success for Swedish driver Max Nilsson. Competing for the HEICO Gravity Charouz team in this championship, he shares a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3 with Finnish driver Mika Vähämäki. The event took place over two days which led to a very tight schedule. On Friday evening the paddock was almost flooded due to strong thunderstorms and heavy showers. However, the free practice and the qualifying sessions on Saturday took place in splendid weather. Max Nilsson is quite familiar with the track after racing here in the 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship. Nilsson set the third-best time in his qualifying, only 0.827 seconds behind the fastest car. The team and the drivers had made the best of the free practice sessions finding a good set-up for the gull-winged car. “I think we could have done even better but I am happy”, says Max Nilsson. Mika Vähämäki set the second-fastest lap time in his qualifying. Therefore, the two drivers each laid a good foundation for races 1 and 2 on Sunday.
With perfect weather on Sunday, the Swede started from the second row (P3) but lost a few places in the tight traffic because he did not want to risk getting kicked out of the race. He gained back a few places later on. After the first half of the race Mika Vähämäki took over and secured the first Mercedes Benz win of the season in the FIA GT3. However, after a victory in this championship the next pit stop is automatically prolonged by 15 seconds.
In the afternoon the Finn started race 2 from P2, dropped to P4 and started a few attacks in order to gain places. The team lost a place during the pit stop due to the prolonged duration. Now in P5, Nilsson rejoined the race with the car in front of him far ahead. However, he continued to shorten the gap lap by lap. Shortly before the end of the race, he was just behind Perez in the Ferrari, winning P5 and a total of 35 championship points. He is currently in P5 in the overall standings with Vähämäki, only two points behind the drivers in P4.
Max Nilsson: “The weekend in Navarra went well. We won one race and I was on the podium with Mika. The start of the first race was ok. A Ferrari was faster on the straight to the first turn and he pushed me a bit to the curbs in the first turn. In order not to risk anything, I released the accelerator and therefore lost pace. As a result, some cars overtook me. However, I wanted to regain the lost places and tried to push as hard as possible without wearing out the tyres too much. The car ran really well and I was able to gain back a few places. We lost a place during the pit stop in the second race and when I rejoined the race I did not see any cars. I pushed and caught up to the car in P4. However, there was not enough time left to overtake him. The team and Mika did a great job, the car ran well and we scored a lot of points”.
The next race will take place in Portimao (POR) from July 6th to 8th, 2012.
Source : Max Nilsson