GT1: Bernoldi-Negrao Maserati Wins in Brazil

Just the Facts:

• Brazilians Enrique Bernoldi and Alexandre Negrao won their home GT1 race Sunday at Sao Paulo.
• It was the first victory of the season for the No. 2 Vitaphone Maserati.
• The debut season for the series will conclude next week in Argentina.

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Enrique Bernoldi and his new teammate, fellow Brazilian Alexandre Negrao, captured the first victory of the season for the No. 2 Vitaphone Maserati in Sunday's GT1 Championship event at Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Negrao, who replaced Portugal's Miguel Ramos after Round 8 in Spain last month, was impressive in his debut. He muscled his way past the leading Aston Martin of Darren Turner with 12 minutes remaining in the one-hour event.

The Maserati finished 2.3 seconds ahead of the Aston, with Marc Hennerici and Alex Margaritis 3rd in a Chevrolet Corvette.

The No.1 Vitaphone MC12 has won twice this year and drivers Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini sit atop the driver standings. However, they finished 9th Sunday.

That, combined with the Saturday qualifying race victory by Turner and Tomas Enge, means the driving title will be decided next week in the finale of the 10-event series at Potrero de los Funes Circuit in San Luis, Argentina.

Bernoldi and Negrao finished 4th in Saturday's one-hour qualifying race, but advanced to 2nd during a sequence of pit stops, setting up Negrao's race-winning pass.

The GT1 Championship is a replacement for the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's FIA GT Championship, held from 1997 through 2009.

Twelve privateer teams are competing, some with the limited factory support permitted by the series rules.

Inside Line says: The German Vitaphone team, five-time champions of the GT Championship, appear poised to keep on claiming the top trophies, although Young Driver AMR still has a shot to steal the title. — David Green, Correspondent