Just two weeks after the last event at the Adria Raceway, the fight for the FIA-GT Championship continued in Brno, Czech Republic. Early on in the weekend the free practice sessions looked to be a good omen for Peter Kox and Jos Menten as, in the second session, they were fastest of the big GT1 field. Peter Kox qualified the Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT and drove the fifth best lap time on the hilly circuit near Brno.

“The car has always performed well here, so let’s hope we now have luck on our side. We hope the car will be reliable and then we should be in for a good result”, said Peter Kox. He proved this trend in Sunday warm up, where the Kox/Menten #28 car again had the overall best lap time.

The duo started from fifth place and kept in contact with the leaders. In his first 18 laps Peter Kox overtook Montanari / Ramos (who went on to win this event in the end) and finished his first stint in fourth position. Some top sector times proved the excellent speed of Kox in the Lamborghini Murciélago. But it could have been more. An incident between two other competitors on lap 16 forced Peter Kox into a spin and, in order to check over the car, the Dutch driver visited the pit lane much earlier than originally planned.

Jos Menten continued with the same level of on-track speed after he entered the cockpit of the Lamborghini Murciélago. On lap 33 he won a fight with the Playteam Maserati of Bertolini / Piccini and moved forward to third position. In the following laps Menten secured his position and built up a bigger gap to his chasers. Because of the changed pit stop strategy, Menten also had to come in earlier in lap 40.

Peter Kox rejoined the race and was still third after all the teams had completed their obligatory pit stops. This meant a position on the podium for the Reiter Engineering crew! But their good performance was not to be rewarded. Only three laps before the end of the 120-minute race a broken wheel nut on the left front wheel caused an unscheduled pit stop and Peter Kox lost five positions in the final classification. In the end Peter Kox and Jos Menten finished in eighth position.

“Today we could have won with the performance level we showed“, said Hans Reiter after the race. “We did not profit from other teams bad luck or strange circumstances in the race. The speed was there the whole weekend. But, in the end, we were not rewarded for our performance. At least we had the fastest lap time in the race.”

Result FIA-GT in Brno:
1. Montanari / Ramos – Maserati MC12
2. Wendlinger / Sharp – Aston Martin DBR9
3. Kumpen / Longin – Corvette C5-R
4. Bertolini / Piccini – Maserati MC12
5. Pier Guidi / Giannocaro – Maserati MC12
6. Muecke / Bouchut – Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT
7. Bartels / Biagi – Maserati MC12
8. Kox / Menten – Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT

After the race in the Czech Republic the FIA GT trucks will go directly to France, where the next race will take place in Nogaro this weekend.