March 21, 2012

11 hours and 56 minutes and then this....



It's not like it hasn't happened before at the 12 Hour of Sebring but once again GT's were bump and grinding on the last laps.

UPDATE: It was not Beretta who hit Hand but Bruni, as our readers quickly clarified (thanks!). This puts Hand in totally different light. Bruni too, I mean what the hell was he doing dive-bombing the race leader while many laps down?

This clip has slightly better video quality than some that have been online and you can see a bit more. I'm not sure why Joey Hand was leaving the door open so much since he was defending with worn tires. He did it twice, when he was passed the first time by Beretta and again when he got hit by him a lap later.

On Beretta's side I don't understand why with what looked like a faster car he chose that spot to make his dodgy second move. Even more puzzling is why he was so slow on the final turn the lap prior, did the Krohn Ferrari ahead stop at the apex (or one of the 24 apexes in that turn...)?

Hand's red mist powered comeback was pretty cool, looks like he has his DTM mindset all figured out. He might have saved himself the "I was ready to put him in the tires" comment afterwards though.


14 comments:

  1. Beretta didn't hit him, Bruni did and he was over 100 laps down. Beretta actually spun and lost second place doing his best avoiding Hand. Hand is an asshole in the team treated as a golden boy in the ALMS. The pit reporter told him who hit him, and Hand went off making insults towards Beretta that have no basis in reality (he doesn't drive dirty like Hand says and never has in his entire ALMS career) and he was too stupid to keep his fat mouth shut before seeing the replays. I can't stand Joey Hand or how the ALMS keeps giving everything to BMW that they want. Screw them both.

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  2. To add, Beretta was driving the 71 Ferrari and Bruni the 51 Ferrari. Beretta was two cars back going into the turn that Bruni drilled Hand in and spun out avoiding him and lost second place. The car with the sign flapping around on the front was the 51 and not the 71.

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  3. UhHuh is right... Beretta did not hit Hand it was Bruni. And yes, Hand is ass.

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  4. Hater's gonna Hate! "Giving BMW everything they want"?!?!? BMW was running the same car as last year with small tweaks. You had new porsches, new corvette aero and new ferraris. Yeah, giving them everything they ask for!!! Good call

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  5. Well that chanfpges the story quite a bit. Shame on alms for putting this clip out giving the impression Beretta was the guilty party and with announcers cheering for Hand But maybe Sebring should invest on better lighting.

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  6. Haters gonna hate? Yeah I guess so. I hate someone that fucking whines and threatens to crash a dude that didn't even hit him and then insults the guy on top of it. And yes, the BMWs are getting everything they want. You really believe the might of Ferrari, Chevrolet and Porsche combined can't beat a year old BMW? Are you REALLY that deluded? Last years BMW was more GT1 than GT2 and everyone knows it. They've gotten their restrictor size increased and weight taken out and the exact opposite has been done to the Porsches. Where did they finish again? Oh yeah, at the back. Right where the ALMS has regulated them to. You can call me a hater all you want, but Joey Hand is a colossal asshole.

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    1. @UhHuh, I don't quite think Joey Hand was talking about Beretta in that interview. I'm not a Joey Hand/BMW fanboy but I've been going over that interview clip a couple times and it really sounds like Hand was talking about Bruni rather than Beretta.

      Look at this:
      Pit Reporter "Now you got hit in the end by the 51, what did you think at that point?"
      JH " I thought it was the 71, I thought, wow that was a cheap shot. BUT....."

      At that but, he seems to change tone and diction where he's now talking about Bruni/51. I don't know how Bruni drives, but if that clip is any indication, I would say Joey Hand is right about Bruni. Bruni shouldn't have even fought so hard against Joey. Like you said, 100 laps down and he's fighting the GT leader? Why? If he took Joey Hand completely out, then Bruni would be completely out of line. You can say "they were all caught up in the moment" but then you can argue that for Joey too. Joey was caught up in the moment and when push comes to shove, he'll shove. You can't blame him for that, especially "caught up in the moment"

      I'll agree with you on Joey's out of hand comments. They were certainly aggressive. But I would rather him saying he's willing to race to win then, " Oh I totally don't want to hit him so I'll surrender the spot so that we don't rub." Joey seems to have the, race to win mentality, even if he means he would have to do some shunting. I can respect that, after all, that was Senna's mentality. I'm not saying let's have demolition derby style, but I'd rather see hard fought positions then none at all. Plus it's wayyyyyy better than the typical racer responses.

      I could be wrong and Joey could be talking about Beretta the entire time. But from my point of view, it really seems like Joey was talking about Bruni and not Beretta. So maybe before YOU go off and run your mouth, maybe you should take a step back and play that interview again.

      I don't know if ALMS is giving all the special treatment to BMW as you say so I wouldn't be able to give an opinion on that. Maybe BMW/Joey is just a great driving team/driver. Maybe they really can hold back all that might. Look at F1, all the special treatment Ferrari gets but they still lose to McLaren and Redbull. Maybe it's less special treatment and more of just a good driver or car.

      Hand may be an ass, but if he's an ass who can win without too much of a liability, he's an ass I would put on my racing team. Sure I can agree that he needs to tone down his comments.

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    2. I'm with you on this one! Well said. No matter who Joey was talking about, he definitely was talking about the asshole who hit him. If there was a name confusion then so be it.

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  7. @AC Johnny O caught himself and noticed it was the 51 that hit him and Beretta wasn't driving that car but I'm guessing they all got caught up in the moment because you can clearly see that the car that hit Hand has a lit up number plate that's clear as day. The pit reporter had it right and Joey "corrected" him and then insulted Beretta. Beretta has NEVER driven dirty in his entire ALMS career and he was waaaay out of line spewing that BS. The ALMS needs to crack down on him for threatening to stuff that Ferrari in the wall, whether he did it or not that kind of shit needs to be nipped in the bud before we have another situation like Laguna Seca and someone gets seriously hurt. Jan only broke his tailbone but that's enough for the ALMS to crack down on guys saying they're going to stuff someone into a wall, and the wrong dude at that.

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  8. ALMS is just the best racing series, hands down. When you consider the spectator outreach they do prerace, to the action on the track, it's the best experience if you want to spend the day at the racetrack and see high quality racing.

    Also, yeah, Hand is being an ass. Beretta is above suspicion when it comes to driving dirty.

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    1. You know, the fact is that any series where you have production based cars will have the sanctioning body monkeying with spec, nominally to even things out. In reality there is much lobbying behind the scenes and is a sanctioning body really wants to attract a specific manufacturer, they will make sure they have a winning car. At least for one season....

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  9. Best Racing Ever.... ALMS

    I was there in turn 3 at the end of the race, and saw hand get punted. He dissapeared around that corner and we could not see him again, and thought he had lost the race.. wow. you can't write this stuff folks!

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  10. Pay to play.... Now even when you're ONE HUNDRED laps down you can simply pay a mere 15,000 Euro to pretend you're contesting the win for the race. Mr. Bruni should have been present at the post race interview with Joey hand so they collectively could have held a check signing ceremony.

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