Mugello Classic opens race season for Peter Auto

Racers with Peter Auto kicked off their 2023 season last week at Italy's iconic Mugello Circuit situated north east of Florence. Over 280 cars were on hand to take full advantage of the fast sweeping corners on offer from the 3.26-mile circuit.

2.0L CUP

There was ferocious competition among the short-chassis Porsche 991s in which only the drivers can make the difference. In this particular game, #99 driven by James Thorpe and Phil Quaife stood out this weekend in qualifying on Saturday afternoon by clinching pole position for the race.

The start was given early on Sunday afternoon and Thorpe in #99 immediately hit the front followed by George Gamble (#77), Christian Coll (#53), Lukas Bucher (#411) and Bonamy Grimes (#116). Thorpe and Gamble broke away from the rest of the field and opened up a gap. The two drivers had 45 minutes to secure first place before handing over to their respective team-mates. Coll and Jürg Aeberhard (#22) were locked in battle for third place. The latter managed to pull away and ate into the gap separating him from the front-running duo before handing over to his team-mate during the pit stop.

The race was turned on its head with only two minutes to go to the checkered flag! #99 came into the pit lane with a technical problem leaving the track clear for David Verzijlbergen in #41 who bagged second place with his team-mate Lukas Bucher. They were surrounded on the podium by Bonamy Grimes in third in #116 and the very quick and consistent victorious pairing Seb Perez and Georges Gamble at the wheel of #77.

Classic Endurance Racing I

For the first time, open cars monopolized the top places at the start of the CER1 race with Max Banks on pole in his #89 McLaren M6B closely followed by the beautiful - and very quick - #4 Porsche 908/03 driven by Henrique Gemperle.

Armand Mille in the #35 Lola T70 started from the back of the grid due to technical issues in qualifying. After a new engine was installed during the night, he made a spectacular comeback finishing just shy of the podium after gaining more than 40 positions. The final classification of the race was Max Banks (#89) who emerged victorious followed by the Lola T70s driven by David Hart (#34) and Toni Seiler (#7)!

Classic Endurance Racing II

The second to last race was led by Maxime and Dominique Guenat who had just won the Heritage Touring Cup followed by Yves Scemama at the wheel of his TOJ SC304 (#52) duking it out with the TOJ SC303 (#49) driven by Dominique Guenat.

In the P-2L category Franck Morel fought his way up through the field in his #131 TOJ SC206 finishing fourth overall and first in his category. But there was an unexpected twist when Guenat went off in #49 putting an end to the TOJ SC303’s race! Diogo Ferrao seized this unexpected opportunity to snatch third place.

With fifteen minutes to go the checkered flag, Maxime Guenat looked unbeatable on this race-packed Sunday in Tuscany. The French driver dominated followed by Morel (#1031) and Diogo Ferrao’s team-mate Martin Stretton, who had taken over. For the second time, Guenat won the race. Franck Morel came home second and Stretton third.

Endurance Racing Legends

The start of the first race of the weekend for the ERLs was a pretty hectic affair. The two LMP1 prototypes driven by Christian Gläsel (#16) and Christophe d’Ansembourg (#17) filled the first two places. Behind them, a duel for third raged between the #88 GT1 Aston Martin in the hands of Philip Kadoorie and the #37 Courage C65 driven by Briton Harvey Stanley.

Twenty minutes before the end of the race the #25 MG EX264 took the lead. This didn’t destabilise the LMP1s of Gläsel (#16) and d’Ansembourg (#17) who finished in first and second places on the podium with Mike Newton in his #25 MG EX264 third.

The Endurance Racing Legends brought down the curtain on Mugello Classic. GLÄSEL (#16), winner of the previous race made it a double thanks to his victory in race 2 followed by David Hart (#34) and Stanley/Littlejohn (#37).

Fifties’ Legends

The Fifties’ Legends took to the track for a 1 hour and 20 minute race. This series welcomes the oldest cars of the series by Peter Auto. Yvan Mahe shot into the lead in his #20 Lister Chevrolet followed by Guy Ziser at the wheel of his #77 3.8 E-Type Jaguar. The Mahe/Scemama duo had dominated the weekend in the qualifying sessions.

The green light went on and the cars were unleashed. The English cars were redoubtable. In second place was the #7 Austin Healey 3000 Mk I driven by Eugène Deleplanque and Romain Guerardelle finished just shy of the podium in his #34 MG B. Victory went to Mahe-Scemama in #20.

Group C Racing

This category was one of the most eagerly-awaited as the Group C regulations in force from 1982 until 1993 led to the construction of legendary cars, which wrote some of the most glorious pages in the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Endurance World Championship.

Christophe d’Ansembourg at the wheel of the powerful #17 Jaguar XJR-14 set the pace and made a great start from Ivan Vercoutere in his #7 Porsche 962 C. The first five minutes of race 2 provided a magnificent spectacle. The #7 Porsche 962 C, the #2 Jaguar XJR-9, the #17 Jaguar XJR-14, the #8 Spice SE90C and the #6 Jaguar XJR-8 thundered down the main straight nose-to-tail at over 300 km/h as they fought for the lead. After 20 minutes racing d’Ansembourg (#17) took advantage of the slipstream of the Spice SE90C (#8) to pull off a superb pass on the straight and drove on to victory. On the second step of the podium was another Jaguar, Richard Meins’ XJR-9, and on the third, Franck Morel in his Spice SE90C.

The Greatest’s Trophy

The Greatest's Trophy or rather the Greatest's “Dream“ Trophy brought together a multitude of legendary cars from some of the greatest constructors.

The #14 Lister Jaguar Knobbly was particularly quick over the weekend clinching second spot in qualifying and winning race 1 driven masterfully by Anthony Schrauwen from Germany. Carlos de Quesada’s #94 Porsche 904/6 Carrera GTS in third place in the first race had a no-holds-barred duel with the #11 Cooper T38 crewed by Wakeman/Blakeney-Edwards. De Quesada tried to pass in the first corner but went wide letting the Cooper T38 pull away.

It proved to be a fatal error although he still finished first in his category in GTP11. The checkered flag was shown to the Cooper T38 of Wakeman and Blakeney-Edwards followed by de Quesada-Catesby Jones in #94 and Carlo Vögele (#4).

Heritage Touring Cup

Maxime Guenat emerged fastest in qualifying at the wheel of his #50 Ford Capri RS 3100. He won the race with two seconds in hand over Emile Breittmayer in his Ford Capri RS 3100 Cologne (#123). Armand Mille was third in another Capri RS 3100 Cologne (#60).

The start of the last Heritage Touring Cup race saw the tightly-bunched pack led by the Ford Capri RS 3000s blast off followed by a trio of BMW 3.0 CSLs. On the first lap, the three leading Fords were broken up by Nicolas d’Ieteren (#25) who took the lead. The two Ford Capris (#50 and #123) and the #49 BMW 365 CSi fought for places in each corner. With 35 minutes to go to the finish, trouble hit the Ford Capri RS 3000s.

Olivier Breittmayer in #22 overcooked it and fell down the time sheets, while Emile Breittmayer in #123 suffered technical glitches that prevented him from rejoining. For over 40 minutes battle raged for the third step of the podium between d’Ieteren in #25 and Dominique Guenat in the #49 BMW 635 CSi. In the end, Maxime Guenat went on to win the race followed by Mille and d’Ieteren who managed to fend off Dominique Guenat.

Sixties’ Endurance Racing

There was just a single 2-hour race on the schedule for Sixties’ Endurance Racing reserved for pre-1963 sports cars and pre-1966 GTs. This endurance event got off to a hard-fought start with a battle for pole between the #51 Shelby Cobra 289 and a brace of 3.8 E-Type Jaguars (#9 and #43). The 62 cars in the race were unleashed and a ding-dong battle developed between the two E-Types driven by Maurizio Bianco and James Thorpe in third and fourth places.

Maxime Guenat made a superb start at the wheel of his #51 Shelby Cobra 289 and snatched the lead by slicing past Thorpe in #43. Yellow flags in several sectors set the tone for the race, which didn’t worry Thorpe who weaved his way through the technical corners. With an hour to go, Harvey Stanley in #72 was in third place battling with Maxime Guenat in #51. The duo Thorpe-Quaife in #43 won the Sixties’ Endurace race while into second and third came Mille-Scemama in #3 and Cook-Harvey in #72.

Up next for Peter Auto is the famed Spa-Classic, May 12-14. More information can be found HERE.

Sights and sounds from the weekend can be seen in this 13-minute video: