Reiter Engineering put together a programme for the 2008 FIA GT Championship with partners InterProgressBank, Have more Fund.com and Antonov. With the exception of the race in Brno, which clashes with the Le Mans Series, the German Lamborghini Team enters a Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT with drivers Peter Kox (NL) and Roman Rusinov (RUS). Tricky conditions awaited the Reiter Engineering team at the opening round of the 2008 FIA GT Championship at Silverstone.

Typical British weather circulated over the “Home of British Motor Racing”. Bitter winds, cold temperatures and a damp track in qualifying and the race made the event exciting. While Peter Kox and Roman Rusinov experimented with new dampers in free practice and did not appear far up the time sheets, unsettled weather in qualifying left the duo in an unfortunate 14th position on the grid.

All the cars were on slicks at the start of the 15 minute session, however, brief showers quickly made the Silverstone track surface very slippery. The decision to change from slicks to intermediates was quickly and correctly made by the team. However, it was difficult to bring the front tyres up to operating temperature in these cold and damp conditions.

The warm-up on Sunday morning was, in contrast, more positive as there was more time available in conditions similar to those in qualifying. Peter Kox was satisfi ed: “I set a 2:07 lap right at the beginning, the tyres came up to temperature quickly and everything worked well.”

For the race at noon the track was still damp and Peter Kox was sent to the grid with rain tyres. The Dutchman quickly worked his up from 14th to 9th before the first of two mandatory pit stops loomed. “Unfortunately, we made a wrong decision as far as the strategy was concerned during the race,” explained Team Director Hans Reiter.

“We changed to intermediates too late as the circuit conditions began to change and we didn’t change to slicks at the end when it was necessary.”

Neither Peter Kox nor Roman Rusinov, who took control of the car on lap 39, was able to catch up with the leader and was overtaken by another competitor in the final part of the race. After two hours Kox / Rusinov finished the first round of the 2008 FIA GT Championship in tenth position overall.

Results

1.	Wendlinger	Sharp	Aston Martin DBR9	94 Points
2.	Bartels	Bertolini	Maserati MC12	94 Points
3.	Peter	Simonsen	Aston Martin DBR9	74 Points
4.	Bouchut	Maassen	Corvette C6.R	68 Points
5.	Hezemans	Gollin	Corvette C6.R	62 Points
6.	Müller	Lichtner-Hoyer	Aston Martin DBR9	62 Points
7.	Negrao	Ramos	Maserati MC12	58 Points
8.	Fässler	Delettraz	Corvette C6.R	48 Points
9.	Vosse	Franchi	Saleen S7R	32 Points
10.	Kox	Rusinov	Lamborghini Murciélago R-GT	28 Points