Race: Beretta and Minassian dominate

The French pairing lost time at the start, when poleman Beretta outbraked himself trying to pass the quick starting Dome of Jan Lammers on the outside of the first corner, but he was back in front after just 11 laps, making quick work of passing those ahead, including Lammers.

"The team did a great job and so did Olivier, because all I had to do was bring it home," said Minassian, who scored his first major victory since being dropped by Chip Ganassi's CART team in the middle of last year.

The only other glitch they encountered was an engine problem in the pits, which shut the motor down and caused Beretta to lose yet more time during his first fuel stop: "I was afraid it was the same starter motor problem which affected us at Barcelona, but it was not," said Beretta.

But these were minor problems in light of their scorching pace, which carried them to victory by 1m27.777s over the factory Courage of Didier Cottaz and Boris Derichebourg. They overcame the Lammers/Val Hillebrand Dome in the closing 20 minutes of the race, as Hillebrand struggled with tyres which were past their best.

The opening round winning Pescarolo Courage of Jean-Christophe Boullion and Franck Lagorce ran as high as second early on, but its Peugeot engine was no match for the Judd-powered opposition, and they fell to fourth. The final finisher in SR1 was the R&M of Mauro Baldi and Alex Caffi, which was five laps down.

Piergiuseppe Peroni and Mirko Savoldi won the SR2 class in their Lucchini, ahead of the second factory car of Fabio Mancini and Gianni Collini.


1 Beretta/Minassian, Dallara-Judd, 2hr30m57.807s
2 Cottaz/Derichebourg, Courage-Judd, +1m27.777s
3 Lammers/Hillebrand, Dome-Judd, + 1 lap
4 Boullion/Lagorce, Courage-Peugeot, + 1 lap
5 Baldi/Caffi, R&M, + 5 laps
6 Peroni/Salvadori, Lucchini, + 6 laps