Johann Ledermair (AUT) surprises the European racing world!
mai 3, 2015

Report Race 2 BOSS GP Paul Ricard/FRA
Start: 12:59
End: 13:27
Temperature: 24,8 C
Cars listed: 22
Cars out on track: 19
Weather conditions: sunny and clear

The 2nd race of BOSS GP at the circuit of Paul Ricard elevates one of the fastest and most spectacular Formula racing series in Europe to the next and well earned level. For the first time in history of BOSS GP a Pro Am GP2 driver beats an established professional pilot in an official race! The current Austrian leader of the Formula Class Johann Ledermair won the battle for the win in an incredible and exciting fight against the former GP2 pilot Stephané Richelmi, winner of the official GP2 Monaco Grand Prix in 2014. Richelmi assigned for the race weekend as the track in Le Castellet is close to his home and the Blancpain series, which he joined this year in the sprint and endurance class was not racing this weekend. The Monaco resident started from P1 followed by Ledermair and the Polish 2014 BOSS GP Champion Jakub Smiechowski. All three drivers were fighting the first half of the race with almost no mercy and the distances between their 3 GP2`s was barely not more than one car length.

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Unfortunately Smiechowski could not keep up with the pace of the two others and lost second by second towards the end of the race. He managed to bring his car home on the podium with P3. It was Richelmi, who still lead the race 2 laps before the checkered flag. Ledermair was lurking in his slipstream and tried to confuse Richelmi with several attempts to change the lines. In the last corner before the last lap he finally surprised him as he suddenly went inside the curbs and gained a small advantage for the exit of this slow right corner. He passed him „on the brakes“ with this brilliant manouver and was able to defeat his 1st place during the last lap finishing 1,5 sec. ahead of Richelmi. What an exciting and outstanding race!

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Another great performance showed Christopher Brenier with his powerful yet heavy V12 Superleague Formula car. The French driver was again the only pilot who could break in the phalanx of the GP2 cars with P4 at his home race. David Moretti finished in a very good fifth place followed by the Dutch routinier Henk de Boer, who finally had his first clean race without any issues with his car.

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‘Tintin’ won the MASTERS Class with an overall 7th place followed by Philippe Haezebrouck, who performed a remarkable race with his lower powered Lola B02/50 F3000 and deserved a podium place in the MASTERS Class. Karl- Heinz Becker again reached a podium spot as well. Florian Schnitzenbaumer (GER), starting the race from P5 parked the car in the pits due to an electrical failure and could not classify himself.

Wolfgang Jaksch (GER) again could not start from the grid as the team was working till the last minute to get the engine problems fixed which accompanied him the whole race weekend. He started out of the pit lane and surprisingly became faster and faster with every lap. He finally overtook almost half of the entire field and finished the race on P9.

The only woman in BOSS GP, Veronika Cicha (CZE), showed again, how fast, consistent and focused a female driver can be with such strong formula cars as she left 6 men behind her and finished bravely on P12. She was unfortunately affected by some boarderline defending manouvers from the French Bruno Navarrete, who was still classified one place ahead of her – even if he cut the mistral chicane in the last lap during an hard infight with Veronika.

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The two Germans Hans Laub and his direct opponent Wolfgang Jordan could not finish as they were involved in a race accident in the early part of the race. Gilles Brenier (FRA) had to park his Superleague Formula as well in the pits with hydraulic problems after just a few laps.

After only two race weekends with already 30 participants, the 2015 BOSS GP series develops itself to a high level, exciting and spectacular European racing series with all the sound, power, high speed and pure driving style, which many of the other race series are not able to deliver anymore. All BOSS GP teams looking forward to Monza in only three weeks time. The legendary high speed track in the Royal Park close to Milano will be a perfect playground for all these fast, powerful and noisy F1, GP2, Worldseries by Renault 3.5 and F 3000 cars, which most puristic racing fans are already missing so badly in the racing universe.

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