For most drivers getting to a track involves a plane journey or, for the lucky ones, it’s a drive done at their leisure. It took Ram Racing’s Gunnar Jeannette over 30 hours to reach Imola from his home in Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States and it involved four different plane trips. He flew from Salt Lake at 7am Tuesday morning to Detroit, then on to Newark in New Jersey where he met up with his team mate Frankie Montecalvo. Together they flew from the USA to Amsterdam in the Netherlands and then onto Bologna in Italy, arriving at noon Wednesday. Just as well Delta Airlines was kind to them and bumped them up the front of the plane so they could sleep!
An appreciation of history…
After the opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Silverstone Gunnar was at the Road Atlanta circuit in Georgia, USA for the Classic Motorsports Mitty historic race meeting (April 26-28). He was driving the Sandeman-liveried yellow Porsche 917, owned by Christian Zugel, which was driven by David Piper in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans – the backdrop for the iconic ‘Le Mans’ movie.
Gunnar said of the experience: “The Porsche 917 is the best sounding race car I’ve ever driven. It sends goose bumps up your arms! I grew up watching Steve McQueen in the Le Mans movie and was captivated by these cars. This wasn’t the first example I’d driven but – being the Sandeman car – I really felt like I was almost in the movie.”
The Italian [name], British [car] and Canadian [team] connection…
Frankie Montecalvo has also been busy in the weeks since Silverstone and took part in another round of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge – achieving a podium finish at Road Atlanta to back up the one he and Jeannette got in Britain.
With team mate Nick Mancuso, the New Jersey driver was driving an Aston Martin GT4 car, run by Multimatic Motorsports, the competition arm of Multimatic Engineering which is one of Canada’s largest and most successful engineering organisations. It is their best result of the season so far.
Frankie has also been to his team mate Gunnar Jeannette’s home in Salt Lake City to help the latter celebrate his birthday (5th May) and took in the chance to do some karting with him. Drivers never miss a chance to drive!
The name is Matt Griffin, the car is a Ferrari…
Ram Racing’s English-based Irishman, Matt, is one of the busiest drivers in the paddock and is now three weeks into a 17-week run of race weekends. Since Silverstone he’s raced at Paul Ricard in France in the GT Open Series, in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and, last weekend, in the second round of the GT Open at Portimão in Portugal, during which he claimed his first win of the season.
All of his races are in a Ferrari 458 Italia, prepared by the Italian manufacturer’s racing specialist, Michelotto, and the results don’t go unnoticed – even at the highest levels. On Tuesday Matt received a personal note of congratulations from Ferrari’s President, Luca di Montezemolo, which the Irish driver says “is a pretty cool email to receive…it’s already up on my wall at home!”
Learn to drive with Johnny Mowlem…
The team’s most experienced driver, Johnny Mowlem, ensures that he doesn’t go too long without getting behind the wheel of a car either and Johnny now operates his own driving academy, working with both corporate clients and drivers wishing to pursue a career in driving.
Just this week Johnny has completed two days at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium – one of several tracks he uses including Dubai, the Nürburgring and Silverstone – with a Lotus Evora. The conditions, as so often experienced at Spa, were mixed and Johnny says that the rain in England on his return home was “almost as bad as Silverstone”.
The European Le Mans Series will be run alongside the FFSA GT Tour in Italy as part of a weekend of racing at Imola. Two one-hour practice sessions will take place on Friday, 17th May followed by a 20-minute qualifying session on Saturday morning. The three-hour race starts at 4:00 pm (CET) on Saturday afternoon.
Source : RAM Racing