September 27-28, Monza (I)

THE PENULTIMATE RACE OF THE SEASON SAW LOTUS CUP EUROPE VENTURE TO THE AUTODROMO NAZIONALE MONZA. WITH LOTUS’ ENTERED ACROSS THREE CLASSES LOTUS CLASS 1 (2-ELEVEN), LOTUS CLASS 2 (EXIGE) AND DIVISION 3 (LOTUS SPECIALS) IT WAS GOING TO MAKE INTERESTING RACING.

The 100 Mile Race

Stefano D’Aste of WTCC fame, and also a Lotus owner and dealer in Northern Italy, got a great rolling start from pole position in his Exige Cup and put around seven cars between himself and the next Lotus, Christophe Lisandre in his 2-Eleven. At the end of lap 1, the order was Stefano D’Aste Exige Cup, Christope Lisandre 2-Eleven, Thierry Verhiest 2-Eleven, John Rasse, Oliver Cunat and Greg Rasse in a trio of Exige Cup cars.

By end second lap, Christopohe Lisandre made up some good ground and was being chased hard by Harry Steegmans in his special order 2-Eleven and Thierry Verhiest. John Rasse had a manufacturered a six second lead over his brother Greg Rasse.

Stefano D’Aste was thirteen seconds in the lead with the others fighting hard for position by lap three- Christophe Lisandre maintaining position, andl holding off the hard-chasing Steegmans and Verhiest.

As the race began to settle down, it appeared that Stefano D’Aste was not going to be troubled out in front, especially on his home circuit. The battle between Lisandre/Steegmans/Verhiest battle would rage for the full hour and a half!  John Rasse looked in command in Class 2, Cunat, the second PR Racing entry of Morosimi/Bobbiese and Greg Rasse were having a good battle.

Lap six and Verhiest took the position from Steegmans, who subsequently locked onto Verhiest's exhaust pipe! Lap nine saw both Verhiest and Steegmans posted their fastest laps of the race - battle was on – and they were pushing each other hard.

The safety car was deployed for a sports prototype crash on lap twelve, luckily the pit window was open at this point and some competitors took advantage of this. Christophe Lisandre fueled under the SC, as did Greg Rasse, Oliver Cunat and Verhiest; both Steegmans and Stefano D’Aste itted late on during the window outwith the safety car.

Straight after pitting the 2-Eleven entry of Montgomery/Cullen suffered electrical problems as soon as Brian Cullen took over the driving and they had to retire on lap 19.

When everyone having stopped, the time sheets showed that some competitors had made gains during the pitstop. The order was Lisandre (+1.1s), Steegmans (+9s), Verhiest (+8s), Stefano, John Rasse, Greg Rasse, Cunat and Utzieri. Stefano and Verhiest were in a big battle!  This soon became battle for the top Lotus as Lisandre's standard steel fuel tank meant another pit stop to refuel for the Frenchman - and he lost his lead. Most competitors use the Lotus Sport 70ltr fuel cell. Lap 29 and Steegmans led from Stefano, Verhiest, Lisandre with Lisandre dropping off the pack.

Lap 30 saw Steegmans driving flat out, just half a second ahead of the experienced Stefano, who was 1.5s ahead of Verhiest.  One lap later and it's Stefano back in the 'lead', just 0.3s ahead of Steegmans and Verhiest (stuck together!).

Meanwhile, John Rasse has a comfortable cushion in his class (Stefano was not racing for points in this class), being 9 seconds ahead of the Morosimi/Bobbiese car, which was 6 seconds ahead of Greg Rasse. Two laps to go and Stefano looks to have shaded this one, but Verhiest pulls it all out of the bag to take 2nd on track from Steegmans, before nipping past Stefano for the win at the final chicane on the very final lap!  Final order then was Verhiest, Stefano, Steegmans, Lisandre, with John Rasse finishing 2nd on the road to Stefano but claiming Class 2 winner's points.

Questioned after the race as why Stefano lost the lead he said “I thought I was a full lap ahead of Verhiest" and that he "let him go".

The Class 1 podium:

Place	Name	Points
1	Thierry Verhiest	45
2	Christophe Lisandre	36
3	Robert Montgomery	0

The Class 2 podium:

Place	Name	Points
1	John Rasse	45
2	Gregory Rasse	36
3	Oliver Cunat	30

Rankings

The Regularity Race

With this the last regularirty of the season, all was to be won and lost.

Unfortunately, despite Thierry Verhiest's mechanics trying their very best, they could not sort the electrical problem on the Irish Montgomery/Cullen 2-Eleven car, the same car that Rob Montgomery competes in Regularity.  Rob came in a few times, they changed plugs, coil etc, but no luck - he retired shortly into the regularity race.

Thierry in his 2-Eleven recorded 1st in the regularity race, second went to Hungarian Zsolt Szemerslky in his Lotus Elise. A superb result for Zsolt.  This was his first time in the car and first time on a circuit! Herve Goesens placed third, Sacha Marcassus and Antoine Leblois fourth and fifth respectively.

Two non-starters in Regularity, one was Cunat who never intended to do anything more than the two training sessions - and then we were missing Innes, who used Harry Steegman's 270PS 2-Eleven car. She had never driven the 2-Eleven before and had never driven on circuit. She commented that she had an excellent time.

The final points tall for the 2008 Regularity season resulted with outright championship victory going to Thierry Verhiest of Belgium on 67 points. Second place went to Herve Goesens on 51 points and Christophe Lisandre of France on 48 points. Robert Montgomery pulled a very respectable fourth for his debut season.

Congratulate to the victors and to all competitors.

The Regularity podium:

Place	Name	Points
1	Thierry Verhiest	20
2	Szemerslky Zsolt	18
3	Maxime Sachs	17

Rankings