Riverside

A victory made in company

The opening Championship race at Riverside Long was decided not by escape but by endurance in close company. Nat Stevenson brought the Shelby Cobra 289 Hardtop home first after 32 laps, with meisterJaeger in an identical Cobra only 0.592 seconds behind. It was a small margin after a race in which neither driver was allowed the luxury of a quiet afternoon.

Kasperi Sirén completed the podium in the Bizzarrini GT 5300 Corsa. From the ninth lap onwards, Stevenson, meisterJaeger and Sirén formed the leading group, never separated by more than five seconds. Their contest acquired a different complexion as the race matured, but its central fact did not alter: the leader had company wherever he looked.

Stevenson had been part of an earlier leading combination with Sirén and FMG, whose Ferrari 250 GTO ultimately took fourth. meisterJaeger then joined the argument, and what had begun as a contest of three changed its membership without losing its tension.

The lead changes hands

Sirén was very much a figure in the first two-thirds of the race. He and Stevenson ran closely together through a sustained early and middle phase, the Finn's Bizzarrini remaining a conspicuous threat among the Cobras. By lap 21, however, Stevenson had moved ahead of Sirén and, more importantly, had taken the lead from meisterJaeger.

That did not settle matters. MeisterJaeger remained close through the closing phase and set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:53.433. Florian Masse, seventh in a Ferrari 250 GTO Series II, was only 0.024 seconds slower on his best tour, underlining the pace available in a field that mixed Cobras, Ferraris, Bizzarrinis, TVRs and other machinery of the period.

But speed over one lap was not enough to dislodge Stevenson over 32. MeisterJaeger kept the pressure on until the chequered flag, yet Stevenson found just sufficient margin to secure the first win of the Championship season.

Ferraris and Cobras behind

Behind the leading trio, Valentin Knechtel and Pedro Ramada conducted a contest of their own. Knechtel's Ferrari 250 GTO Series II had fallen to ninth by the end of lap two, but the German recovered steadily to fifth. Ramada's Cobra was seldom far away, and the pair ran within two seconds of one another for much of the race from lap five to lap 30.

Their order changed early in that struggle. Ramada had held the advantage at the end of lap four, only for Knechtel to move ahead by the following lap. Thereafter the Ferrari driver retained the upper hand in the final classification, with Ramada sixth. It was a sound recovery by Knechtel, made more valuable by the sustained nature of the pursuit behind him.

FMG's fourth place placed a Ferrari between Sirén and the Knechtel-Ramada contest, while Masse followed in seventh. The leading positions therefore offered a fair cross-section of the meeting: the Cobra decisive at the front, the Bizzarrini on the podium, and the Ferraris firmly represented among the first seven.

The first marker

There was no need to search far down the order for the character of the race. The first three told it plainly. Stevenson won, meisterJaeger pressed him to the end, and Sirén remained part of the leading equation for almost the entire distance.

For Stevenson, the immediate reward is the first victory of the six-race Championship. More significantly, Riverside Long established the terms on which the season may be contested. The Cobra was quick enough to win, but it did not have the afternoon to itself; meisterJaeger showed equal pace over a lap, and Sirén's Bizzarrini gave the American machinery a persistent rival at the head of the field.