Paddock Postcard from Spa-Francorchamps 16 Sep 2007
There was more than one celebration in the Belgian Grand Prix paddock on Saturday. Firstly, Bernie Ecclestone joined other Formula One veterans in a gathering of the ‘500+ GP club’. As the name suggests, its members have all attended 500 or more Grands Prix, among them McLaren’s Ron Dennis, Williams’ Patrick Head and the FIA’s Charlie Whiting.
Then, in the evening, former rally stars Bjorn Waldegaard and Ove Andersson made special appearances as Toyota marked their 50th year of motorsport. The prize of the use of a hybrid Toyota Prius for three years went to motorsport quiz-winning maestro, Joe Saward. Fortunately, journalist Saward, once a confirmed non-driver, passed his test last year.
On the track, Saturday’s GP2 race was won by DAMS’ Nicolas Lapierre from Super Nova’s Luca Filippi, ART’s Lucas di Grassi, Racing Engineering’s Javier Villa and Mike Conway, who also drives for Super Nova. Adam Carroll was challenging Filippi for second place when he crashed his Petrol Ofisi FMS International car. He was unharmed.
Championship leader Timo Glock’s car stalled on the grid, and he recovered to 17th. As a result, Di Grassi is now only six points behind (79 to 73) with three races remaining.
