Martin Hails “Perfect Job” from Rossi to Secure Podium

Maxime Martin hailed a “perfect job” from his Team WRT co-driver Valentino Rossi who earned his first Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS podium at Brands Hatch.

Former MotoGP star Rossi finished second in Race 2 of last weekend’s Sprint Cup season-opener after Martin qualified the No. 46 BMW M4 GT3 on row two of the grid.

Martin tailed Audi Sport factory drivers Christopher Mies and Christopher Haase during his stint until WRT jumped Sainteloc Junior Team and Comtoyou Racing in the pits.

However, instead of taking the lead, Rossi emerged in second after Attempto Racing used an undercut approach to get its Tresor-badged Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to the front.

Mattia Drudi went on to take the win alongside Ricardo Feller, but Rossi kept the Audi driver within four seconds as he also defended from his WRT teammate Charles Weerts and Garage 59 McLaren driver Benjamin Goethe.

“It was really intense,” Martin said of the last few laps.

“At the end, from the past you can have some mistakes, so we really like, ‘keep calm, we have to bring it back.’ It was really intense, but he did a perfect job.

“The whole stint he was competitive and he didn’t do any mistakes. The team did a really good pit stop so we jumped two cars and lost one position. So at the end we were P2.”

WRT gave Rossi a set of brand-new Pirelli P Zero DHF tires for his closing stint to maximize the likelihood of a podium result.

The Belgian squad saved its final new set of the weekend for that moment after its chances of a high finish in Race 1 were dashed by Rossi only qualifying 20th at a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult.

“That’s because we had one good qualifying and we [agreed to] use this [new set] for the second stint to try to undercut people,” Martin reflected.

“Also, when the car is lighter and has new tires, it’s quite a lot easier to drive [so] it’s quite good in qualifying on the peak of the tire.

“That’s why, for Vale, we decided to put him on new tires because the car is a bit easier in the second stint. Everything made it easier. That’s why I think we made a step with him.”

Martin added that WRT didn’t expect to reach the podium at Brands, in Rossi’s first sprint race outing with the BMW that WRT started using this season after switching from Audi.

The Belgian driver, who shares the No. 46 BMW with Rossi and Augusto Farfus in the Endurance Cup, reckons there is potential for more high finishes during the season.

“At the end, for the team to be on the double podium and the first podium for Vale in GT World Challenge is very good,” said Martin.

“It’s a good start. In the whole full year last year he didn’t do a podium, so for us the first race in Sprint we have a podium. It’s really good.

“When you see here, we were not far from being able to win. I think everything is possible.”

Rossi, for his part, declared that he was “absolutely delighted” to claim his first GTWC Europe podium and his second with WRT following the Hankook 24H Dubai.

“We worked hard for this over the whole weekend, with particular focus on practicing driver changes,” he said.

“That paid off in our fast pit stops. Maxime did a great job in qualifying and handed the car over to me in a very good position.

“I found a good pace pretty quickly and was able to finish in second place.

“This is an important podium for me as we came close a few times last year, just like at Monza a few weeks ago.”