N'ring race: Lammers' landmark win

The Dutch former Le Mans winner had emerged from the pits at the halfway point in third place after taking over the Dome-Judd from his young Belgian co-driver Val Hillebrand, but quickly passed Christian Pescatori's Scuderia Italia Ferrari and Boris Derichebourg's Pescarolo Sport Courage to grab the lead. From there he simply drove away from the field as the duo behind battled, eventually beating Derichebourg by nearly a minute as the early race rain returned for the final couple of laps.

"I feel very proud because we are a small team with a lot of young guys, and not a massive budget - this is a great achievement," he said.

Hillebrand had earlier lost the lead in the pits to Jean-Christophe Boullion in the Courage as all the front-runners dived for wet weather tyres when the heavens opened after 25 laps. The Frenchman then controlled the race from the front to hand Derichebourg a 14-second advantage, but Pescarolo's second driver was unable to stave off the charging Lammers.

"The Dome guys were quicker than us today and deserved to win," shrugged Boullion.

Kremer had a strong chance to take its first victory of the year, only for the team to fall foul of the rain. Jean-Marc Gounon led the early stages, building a six-second gap to Hillebrand and Boullion over the first 20 laps. But he took on slicks just before the downpour and was forced to come in again and change to wet weather tyres. The Frenchman then charged back up to third, before young co-driver Sam Hancock took over. He fought Derichebourg for third, but bad luck struck again as first a wheel nut came off and then the engine dropped a valve to end the rapid Briton's afternoon prematurely.

The British Ascari team appeared to have salvaged the final podium place after a trying afternoon. Poleman Werner Lupberger spun as he negotiated the Castrol S chicane on the first lap, before charging back up through the field to fourth place. But like Gounon, he pitted just before the rainfall and took on slicks. Unlike the Kremer Lola, Lupberger elected to stay out during the downpour instead of coming back in to change. Much time was lost, but as it dried the South African charged hard and gave Ben Collins the chance to continue the prograss and finish third on the road.

Then after the race, Ascari's day took a down-turn once again. The car was protested by the Den Bla Avis team on its bodywork and exterior dimensions and Ascari was thrown out of the results.

But aside from Asacari, the main talking point was the controversy over the battle for the championship further down the field. Pescatori's Ferrari was running second when the gearbox began to leak oil badly. He pitted late in the race for points leader Marco Zadra to take over, but he eventually had to park the car in the pits.

This meant that the fourth-placed John Nielsen/Hiroki Katoh Den Bla Avis Dome-Judd, which had to beat the Ferrari to take the title battle to the final round in Kyalami, looked as though it was going to keep those hopes alive. But the Scuderia Italia team's second car parked up in the final laps to retire itself, and Marco Zadra went out for the final tour to limp to the flag. Add in Peter Owen's Reynard missing out on being classified as he pitted from sixth place on the very final lap to change tyres, and Zadra ended up classified one place behind Nielsen in fifth place - enough to take the crown.

However, the Ferrari's result looked in doubt when it was alleged that the team had added extra gearbox oil as the car sat in the pits, which is against the rules. But the Ferrari was not thrown out of the results and Zadra kept his champiosnhip.

Den Bla Avis was promoted to third place following its successful protest of Ascari, but it had no effect on the title outcome because Zadra's Ferrari moved up to fourth in class behind the Dome as a result. That maintained the 22 point gap Zadra needed to win the championship.

One title that was settled without confusion was the SR2 crown, which went the way of the SportsRacing Team Sweden duo of Thed Bjork and Larry Oberto. They won the race in their Lola-Nissan B2K/40, and with the late race retirement of rivals Martin O'Connell and Warren Carway in the Rowan Racing Pilbeam-Nissan, the crown belonged to the Scandinavian crew.

Val Hillebrand/Jan Lammers, Dome-Judd S101
Jean-Christophe Boullion/Boris Derichebourg, Courage-Peugeot C60
John Nielsen/Hiroki Katoh, Dome-Judd S101
Thed Bjork/Larry Oberto, Lola-Nissan B2K/40 (1st in SR2)
Roberto Tonetti/Massimo Saccomanno, Lucchini-Alfa
Piergiuseppe Peroni/Raffaele Raimondi, Lucchini-Alfa
Christian Pescatori/Marco Zadra, Ferrari 333SP

* Zadra was classified 12th overall, but was fifth in SR1 and therefore has provisionally won the title, not withstanding the protest of John Nielsen's Den Bla Avis team.