Puncture ruins Scuderia Playteam SaraFree's Monza's hopes despite pole

- Ferrari F430 n. 4 - Manuel Giao \ Pedro Couceiro - 5' handicap 

After qualifying in pole and sixth for race one, the two Ferrari 430 GT2 driven by Andrea Montermini and Pedro Couceiro took a perfect start. Montermini kept the lead and Couceiro was fourth, 2.423 behind the leader, Pompidou and Aguas - with six Ferraris in the top six of the race. Everything worked well for Montermini until lap 7 where the  Ferrari spun after a puncture that ruined his race.

The pace car went out and prevented any progress. Following the incident Montermini-Maceratesi classified 27th. Later Pedro Couceiro lost a bit of ground falling to sixth on lap 9, 2.7' behind Pompidou, the leader. In the end Giao and Couceiro finished the Proam race in the points in seventh position.

Giao and Couceiro changed driver and the car which had to complete a 5s penalty. Coming out of the pits, Giao was very unlucky, losing time with oil on the track from a competitor, and going through the gravel trap, Giao recovered and with five minutes to go until the checkered flag. He rejoined in 14th position and improved to seventh by the end of the race scoring two valuable points.

Championship contenders Lietz-Roda had also a poor day. Both teams will go into tomorrow's GT Open race with 133 points, in a fight for the title that could not be tighter.

The "Romania, piacere di conoscerti" (in English "Romania pleased to know you") information campaign continued at Monza on Saturday morning with a press conference held by team owner and founder Giambattista Giannoccaro, Italian driver Andrea Montermini and a testimonial of the project from Romanian actress Ramona Badescu, on occasion of the penultimate event of the International GT Open season at the autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

The program is an initiative born from a Romanian Government request to improve dialogue with the Romanian community living in Italy. The campaign is based on experiences of Romanians living in Italy.

Through this campaign, the agency wants to help Italians to become better acquainted with the culture and the Romanian way of thinking. The campaign is an important and significant step toward better integration of the large numbers of Romanians presently living in Italy.

Couceiro commented after his race, "I took an excellent start. Everything was going well until Montermini had a puncture on the seventh lap. I saw it and I lifted a bit. Then the pace car came out and our tyres cooled down.My team mate could not avoid the oil on the track at Parabolica.

I am convinced we could have been on the podium if we had not lost our advantage at this point. Overall the car was good all race. Now we finish in seventh place and we took one point out of Lietz, but it is getting difficult.  So tomorrow we need to make no mistakes at all."

Andrea Montermini commented, "The car was perfect today even if we encountered some problems with the throttle, but we took care of that on time. However, as the tyre started laminating I felt some vibrations. But I did not think that was a reason to be alarmed. It was so important to take points in this race. We can only wish a good race tomorrow."

Manuel Giao commented, "Today was not easy. There was a lot of confusion following Andrea?s problem : I was a bit unlucky, loosing the car on oil in the parabolica, the most difficult turn and I went to the gravel trap. After I recovered, at least we scored points this race which is good for the Championship."

Michele Maceratesi commented, "I only completed three laps. We had a goodstart. But the puncture put us off and changed our race. Luckily Andrea wasable to keep the car on the track, but the tyres were damaged. For me it was impossible to continue. At least I tried. But I did not go very far. There was nothing we could do."

- Agnes Carlier-