Italian GP race 1 was a fantastic performance by Tom and Pal in Maritimo 11. They had a great start and was in second around first turn. A close turn saw Fazza 3 and Victory 1 side by side with Maritimo. After some laps Fazza 3 stopped due to engine problems. That left the door open for Maritimo to cruise in to their first Class-1 WC win together.
But that was to good to be true. Just before the prizegiving it was something going on. Everybody including offcourse the spectators had to waith 45 minutes before the message came. Maritimo was now in second place and Victory 1 was announced as a winner without the suppoert from the crowds.
Pal says - A strange and very dissapointed feeling to get this message after our maiden win here. I thought the Class-1 and WPPA was more proffessional than this treatment. The reason is because the WPPA says we took the long lap one lap to late. The rules says on lap 6 but we took it on lap six but the entering of the long lap is on the start/finnish line. Therefor we "took" it on lap 7. That gave us a penalty of 15 seconds.
I am really dissapionted on behalf of the team but i am most angry because we never got the message during the race. Tom and myself drove quite safe the last laps in the lead, if we had got the message we would for sure taken our penalty longlap and pushed hard for this deserved win.