Marco Zadra Crowned Sportscar Champion
16.9.01

At the penultimate round of the SportsRacing World Cup at the Nurburgring, Marco Zadra, in the BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 333SP, was crowned World Sportscar Champion.

Sharing his car with Christian Pescatori, the win was far from easy and relied upon some, shall we say, non-racing events to secure the championship.

They qualified only fifth, with the sister car driver by A. Zadra/Calderari/Bryner down in 14th.

Racing in cold and changeable weather conditions, the lead Ferrari struggled to maintain the pace of the quicker prototypes and looked to be a retirement when it lost all but fourth gear with just 30 minutes of the race left. However, Marco's father, Angelo Zadra, then appeared to deliberately retire his own Ferrari and Marco staggered around in his wounded Ferrari one final lap to give himself some vital extra points towards the championship.

But then the third placed Ascari was excluded from the results, which moved the ailing Ferrari up into a fifth place finish, which was all it needed to take the title from the Dome pairing of Nielsen/ Katoh, who were only able to finish third.

A protest against the Ferrari that it had (illegally) been topped up with gearbox oil was rejected after the race.

The final round takes place at Kyalami on 25th November.

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