Jetalliance Racing
Encyclopedia
Jetalliance Racing is an Austria
n racing team which currently competes in the FIA GT Championship
. Founded by Lucas Lichtner-Hoyer, former CEO of Jetalliance
airlines, in 2006 under the name Race Alliance Motorsport, the team has run two privateer Aston Martin DBR9
s in FIA GT as well as making appearances in other racing series. Lichtner-Hoyer is one of the team's four drivers, joined by Karl Wendlinger
, Ryan Sharp
and Alex Müller
.
backing for a majority of Austrian drivers, such as Karl Wendlinger and Philipp Peter
. The team would also occasionally employ a Porsche 911 GT3
-RSR for competition in the smaller GT2 class as well as a BMW M3
GTR for the Spa 24 Hours
. The Aston Martins would struggle, with Wendlinger and Peter's car being the only one for the team to score points all season. However the team would manage one victory at Mugello
. This helped the team gain a sixth place in the team's championship, while Peter and Wendlinger would tie for 14th in the driver's standings.
replaced Peter while the team would abandon their Porsche to fully concentrate on the Aston Martins. A second victory would come at Monza
, followed by the team leading early in the Spa 24 Hours
before mechanical issues forced them to drop out. The team would improve to fourth in the championship following another victory in Italy, this time at Adria
. At the next round of the FIA GT Championship in Brno
Wendlinger qualified the #33 DBR9 in third place and finished in second place behind the #2 Vitaphone Racing
MC12. At the penultimate race of the 2007 season in Nogaro
the #33 car got beaten in qualifying for the first time by the #36 car driven by Robert Lechner. Lechner qualified the #36 car in second place behind the #1 Vitaphone Racing
MC12 of Thomas Biagi
, the gap between the two cars was 0.000 seconds (Biagi was on pole because he did his lap before Lechner). Meanwhile Wendlinger had qualified the #33 car in third place. The results from Nogaro for the two Jetalliance cars were: fifth place for the #33 car with Wendlinger and Sharp and ninth for Lechner and Lichtner-Hoyer. The last race of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season was in Zolder
, during qualifying the #36 car first jumped into pole position only to beaten by his team mate in the #33 car, Karl Wendlinger who was 0.716 seconds quicker than Lechner who ended up in third place behind the #12 Playteam Sarafree MC12. The results of the last race at Zolder were: #33 Wendlinger/Sharp in first place and the #36 car with Lechner/Lichtner-Hoyer in ninth place partly due to Lechner spining when exiting one of the corners early on in the race.
With the season over and all the points had been calculated Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp finished in joint second place in the Drivers Championship with fifty-seven points, four points behind the Drivers Champion Thomas Biagi in the #1 Vitaphone Racing MC12. Robert Lechner and Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer finished in joint thirty-second place with Ferdinando Monfardini
of Aston Martin
Racing BMS with eight points. Jetalliance Racing finished in third place in the Teams Championship with fifty points, three points behind second place team Scuderia Playteam Sarafree and fifty-five points behind Vitaphone Racing.
Jetalliance also chose to participate in their first Le Mans Series
event in 2007, the 1000km of Spa
. Lichtner-Hoyer and Thomas Grüber joined Wendlinger in a single DBR9, managing to finish 13th overall and fifth in class.
N24's in late 2007 and will be racing them in the 2008 FIA GT3 European Championship
.
Jetalliance ran a Porsche 996-RSR at the Dubai 24Hr
in January 2008 with the driving seat be filled by: Karl Wendlinger, Lucas Lichtner-Hoyer, Vitus Eckert, Klaus Engelhorn and Ryan Sharp who was entered to drive the Porsche at the last minute. They failed to finish due to gearbox failure, seventeen hours into the race.
Jetalliance will return to the FIA GT in 2008
with two Aston Martin DBR9's, numbered 33 and 36 like they were in 2007. Car #33 will be driven by last years drive pairing of Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp. Lichtner-Hoyer will once again pilot the #36 car, but will not be paired with Robert Lechner, but with Alex Müller. Jetalliance have partnered up with the Austrian Olympic Committee for the 2008 season and will be carrying new logos on both cars to show this relationship.
FIA GT Championship 2006
#32 DBR9
#33 DBR9
#99 911 GT3-RSR
#199 M3 GTR
FIA GT Championship 2007
#33 DBR9
#36 DBR9
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n racing team which currently competes in the FIA GT Championship
FIA GT Championship
The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout the years has visited other continents including Asia and South...
. Founded by Lucas Lichtner-Hoyer, former CEO of Jetalliance
Jetalliance
Jetalliance Flugbetriebs GesmbH is a chartered airplane provider based in Oberwaltersdorf , Austria. It was established and started operations in 1996 and operates an extensive business jet network...
airlines, in 2006 under the name Race Alliance Motorsport, the team has run two privateer Aston Martin DBR9
Aston Martin DBR9
The Aston Martin DBR9 is a racing car built by Aston Martin Racing, debuting in 2005. The name DBR9 is derived from the original 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning DBR1 car, named for then-owner David Brown, which not only won the 24 Hour race in 1959 but also the World Sportscar title.-Development:Based...
s in FIA GT as well as making appearances in other racing series. Lichtner-Hoyer is one of the team's four drivers, joined by Karl Wendlinger
Karl Wendlinger
Karl Wendlinger is an Austrian sportscar racing and former Formula One driver.- Mercedes Juniors :Wendlinger started his career in karting and in Formula Ford before entering the German Formula 3 Championship in 1988...
, Ryan Sharp
Ryan Sharp
Ryan Sharp is a race car driver and team manager born in Newtonhill, Scotland, United Kingdom on 29 April 1979. He raced in the FIA GT Championship in 2007 with JetAlliance Racing in their lead #33 Aston Martin DBR9 - with Ex-F1 Driver Karl Wendlinger as his team-mate. Ryan was also the 2003...
and Alex Müller
Alex Müller
Alexander Müller is a German racing driver currently competing in the FIA GT1 World Championship for Mad-Croc Racing.-Career:...
.
2006
Debuting in the 2006 season, the team would be amongst the earliest customers of the new DBR9s, running two cars with Red BullRed Bull
Red Bull is an energy drink sold by the Austrian Red Bull GmbH, created in 1987 by the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz. In terms of market share, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink in the world, with 3 billion cans sold each year. Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an already...
backing for a majority of Austrian drivers, such as Karl Wendlinger and Philipp Peter
Philipp Peter
Philipp Peter is a race car driver from Austria.In 2003 he won the 12 Hours of Sebring in a Team Joest Audi R8 with teammates Marco Werner and Frank Biela...
. The team would also occasionally employ a Porsche 911 GT3
Porsche 911 GT3
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a higher performance version of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is the latest in a line of high performance models, beginning with the 1973 911 RS...
-RSR for competition in the smaller GT2 class as well as a BMW M3
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M. M3 models have been derived from the E30, E36, E46 and E90/E92/E93 3-series, and sold with coupé, sedan and convertible body styles...
GTR for the Spa 24 Hours
2006 Spa 24 Hours
The 2006 Proximus Spa 24 Hours was the fourth race for the 2006 FIA GT Championship season. It took place on July 29 and 30 2006. It set a record for the farthest distance run since the event changed to the shorter 7 km track in 1979....
. The Aston Martins would struggle, with Wendlinger and Peter's car being the only one for the team to score points all season. However the team would manage one victory at Mugello
2006 FIA GT Mugello 500km
The 2006 FIA GT Mugello 500 km was the seventh race for the 2006 FIA GT Championship season. It took place on September 17, 2006.-Official results:Class winners in bold...
. This helped the team gain a sixth place in the team's championship, while Peter and Wendlinger would tie for 14th in the driver's standings.
2007
2007 saw improvement from the renamed team, even though they lost the backing of their primary sponsor Red Bull. Ryan SharpRyan Sharp
Ryan Sharp is a race car driver and team manager born in Newtonhill, Scotland, United Kingdom on 29 April 1979. He raced in the FIA GT Championship in 2007 with JetAlliance Racing in their lead #33 Aston Martin DBR9 - with Ex-F1 Driver Karl Wendlinger as his team-mate. Ryan was also the 2003...
replaced Peter while the team would abandon their Porsche to fully concentrate on the Aston Martins. A second victory would come at Monza
2007 FIA GT Monza 2 Hours
The 2007 FIA GT Monza 2 Hours was the fourth round of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season. It took place at Autodromo Nazionale Monza on June 24, 2007.-Official results:...
, followed by the team leading early in the Spa 24 Hours
2007 Spa 24 Hours
The 2007 Total Spa 24 Hours was the 60th running of the Spa 24 Hours as well as the fifth round of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season. The G3 class also included cars running in the GT3 specification seen in the FIA GT3 European Championship, although this event was not part of their scheduled...
before mechanical issues forced them to drop out. The team would improve to fourth in the championship following another victory in Italy, this time at Adria
2007 FIA GT Adria 2 Hours
The 2007 FIA GT Adria 2 Hours was the seventh round of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season. It took place at Adria International Raceway, Italy, on September 8, 2007. This race was run later than usual, under the cover of darkness. However the track did use floodlights in an attempt to aid the...
. At the next round of the FIA GT Championship in Brno
2007 FIA GT Brno 2 Hours
The 2007 FIA GT Brno 2 Hours was the eighth round of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season. It took place at Masaryk Circuit, Czech Republic, on September 23, 2007.-Official results:...
Wendlinger qualified the #33 DBR9 in third place and finished in second place behind the #2 Vitaphone Racing
Vitaphone Racing
Vitaphone Racing is a German racing team who participate in the FIA GT Championship. The team is actually Bartels Motor & Sport GmbH but runs under the title of their primary sponsor, Vitaphone GmbH. In 2011 Vitaphone Racing was renamed Vita4One...
MC12. At the penultimate race of the 2007 season in Nogaro
2007 FIA GT Nogaro 2 Hours
The 2007 FIA GT Nogaro 2 Hours was the ninth round of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season. It took place at Circuit Paul Armagnac, France, on September 30, 2007.-Official results:...
the #33 car got beaten in qualifying for the first time by the #36 car driven by Robert Lechner. Lechner qualified the #36 car in second place behind the #1 Vitaphone Racing
Vitaphone Racing
Vitaphone Racing is a German racing team who participate in the FIA GT Championship. The team is actually Bartels Motor & Sport GmbH but runs under the title of their primary sponsor, Vitaphone GmbH. In 2011 Vitaphone Racing was renamed Vita4One...
MC12 of Thomas Biagi
Thomas Biagi
Thomas Biagi is a professional racecar driver from Italy. Biagi was born in Bologna, in 7 May 1976.Biagi started his career in single seaters, driving in Formula Alfa Boxer and Italian Formula Three Championship, where he was 5th best in 1995, with two wins. From there, he moved up to the FIA...
, the gap between the two cars was 0.000 seconds (Biagi was on pole because he did his lap before Lechner). Meanwhile Wendlinger had qualified the #33 car in third place. The results from Nogaro for the two Jetalliance cars were: fifth place for the #33 car with Wendlinger and Sharp and ninth for Lechner and Lichtner-Hoyer. The last race of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season was in Zolder
Zolder
The Circuit Zolder, also known as Circuit Terlaemen, is an undulating motorsport race track in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium.Built in 1963, Zolder hosted the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix on 10 separate occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the 1980 Belgian motorcycle Grand Prix. The F1 circus...
, during qualifying the #36 car first jumped into pole position only to beaten by his team mate in the #33 car, Karl Wendlinger who was 0.716 seconds quicker than Lechner who ended up in third place behind the #12 Playteam Sarafree MC12. The results of the last race at Zolder were: #33 Wendlinger/Sharp in first place and the #36 car with Lechner/Lichtner-Hoyer in ninth place partly due to Lechner spining when exiting one of the corners early on in the race.
With the season over and all the points had been calculated Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp finished in joint second place in the Drivers Championship with fifty-seven points, four points behind the Drivers Champion Thomas Biagi in the #1 Vitaphone Racing MC12. Robert Lechner and Lukas Lichtner-Hoyer finished in joint thirty-second place with Ferdinando Monfardini
Ferdinando Monfardini
Ferdinando Monfardini is an Italian race car driver. He raced in the 2005 and 2006 GP2 Series seasons, having previously raced in the Formula 3000 series which it replaced.-Career:...
of Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin Lagonda Limited is a British manufacturer of luxury sports cars, based in Gaydon, Warwickshire. The company name is derived from the name of one of the company's founders, Lionel Martin, and from the Aston Hill speed hillclimb near Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire...
Racing BMS with eight points. Jetalliance Racing finished in third place in the Teams Championship with fifty points, three points behind second place team Scuderia Playteam Sarafree and fifty-five points behind Vitaphone Racing.
Jetalliance also chose to participate in their first Le Mans Series
Le Mans Series
The Le Mans Series is a European sports car racing endurance series based around the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and run by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest . The series was originally named the Le Mans Endurance Series, but changed its name prior to the 2006 season...
event in 2007, the 1000km of Spa
2007 1000km of Spa
The 2007 1000km of Spa was the fourth round of the 2007 Le Mans Series season. It took place at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium, on August 19, 2007.-Official results:Class winners in bold...
. Lichtner-Hoyer and Thomas Grüber joined Wendlinger in a single DBR9, managing to finish 13th overall and fifth in class.
2008
Jetalliance purchased four Aston Martin V8 VantageAston Martin V8 Vantage
Aston Martin V8 Vantage may refer to:* Aston Martin V8 Vantage * Aston Martin Virage * Aston Martin V8 Vantage...
N24's in late 2007 and will be racing them in the 2008 FIA GT3 European Championship
FIA GT3 European Championship
The FIA GT3 European Championship is a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation and regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . It is a championship derived from the international FIA GT1 World Championship, but meant to provide competition for more...
.
Jetalliance ran a Porsche 996-RSR at the Dubai 24Hr
Dubai Autodrome
The Dubai Autodrome is an F.I.A. sanctioned 5.39 km motorsports circuit located in Dubailand, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.Opened in October 2004 with the final round of the 2004 Formula Renault V6 Eurocup season, Dubai Autodrome was the first part of the Dubai Motor City development that was...
in January 2008 with the driving seat be filled by: Karl Wendlinger, Lucas Lichtner-Hoyer, Vitus Eckert, Klaus Engelhorn and Ryan Sharp who was entered to drive the Porsche at the last minute. They failed to finish due to gearbox failure, seventeen hours into the race.
Jetalliance will return to the FIA GT in 2008
2008 FIA GT Championship season
The 2008 FIA GT Championship season was the twelfth season of the FIA GT Championship. It featured a series for Grand Touring style cars broken into two classes based on power and manufacturer involvement, called GT1 and GT2. Invitational G2 and G3 classes were also allowed to participate but...
with two Aston Martin DBR9's, numbered 33 and 36 like they were in 2007. Car #33 will be driven by last years drive pairing of Karl Wendlinger and Ryan Sharp. Lichtner-Hoyer will once again pilot the #36 car, but will not be paired with Robert Lechner, but with Alex Müller. Jetalliance have partnered up with the Austrian Olympic Committee for the 2008 season and will be carrying new logos on both cars to show this relationship.
FIA GT Championship 20062006 FIA GT Championship seasonThe 2006 FIA GT Championship season is the 10th season of FIA GT Championship. It is a series for Grand Touring style cars broken into two classes based on power and manufacturer involvement, called GT1 and GT2. Invitational G2 and G3 classes are also allowed to participate, but do not count...
#32 DBR9
- Starts: 01
- Pole Positions: 00
- Wins: 00
- Highest Placed Finish: 29th
- DNF's: 01
#33 DBR9
- Starts: 10
- Pole Positions: 00
- Wins: 01
- Highest Placed Finish: 01st
- DNF's: 05
#99 911 GT3-RSR
- Starts: 06
- Pole Positions: 00
- Wins: 00
- Highest Placed Finish: 17th
- DNF's: 02
#199 M3 GTR
- Starts: 01
- Pole Positions: 00
- Wins: 00
- Highest Placed Finish: 22nd
- DNF's: 00
- Karl Wendlinger & Philipp PeterPhilipp PeterPhilipp Peter is a race car driver from Austria.In 2003 he won the 12 Hours of Sebring in a Team Joest Audi R8 with teammates Marco Werner and Frank Biela...
finished 14th in the GT1 Drivers Championship. - Jaroslav JanišJaroslav JanišJaroslav "Jarek" Janiš is an auto racing driver born on 8 July 1983 in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia. In 2006 he is racing in the FIA GT Championship. He has taken 3 pole positions Brno, Dijon and the Hungaroring but only a single victory, teamed with Sascha Bert and occasionally former Formula One...
finished 3rd in the GT1 Drivers Championship (Drove for Race Alliance In Rd10). - Christophe BouchutChristophe BouchutChristophe Bouchut is a French race driver. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1993. He currently drives in the FIA GT1 World Championship...
finished 23rd in the GT1 Drivers Championship (Drove for Race Alliance In Rd4). - Robert Lechner finished in 34th in the GT1 Drivers Championship.
- Race Alliance Motorsport finished 6th in the GT1 Teams Championship.
FIA GT Championship 20072007 FIA GT Championship seasonThe 2007 FIA GT Championship season was the 11th season of FIA GT Championship. It was a series for Grand Touring style cars broken into two classes based on power and manufacturer involvement, called GT1 and GT2. Invitational G2 and G3 classes were also allowed to participate, but did not count...
#33 DBR9
- Starts: 10
- Pole Positions: 03
- Wins: 03
- Highest Placed Finish: 01st
- DNF's: 02
#36 DBR9
- Starts: 09
- Pole Positions: 00
- Wins: 00
- Highest Placed Finish: 07th
- DNF's: 02
- Karl Wendlinger & Ryan Sharp finished 2nd in the Drivers Championship.
- Robert Lechner & Lukas Lichter-Hoyer finished 32nd in the Drivers Championship.
- Jetalliance Racing finished 3rd in the Teams Championship.
External links
- Jetalliance Racing
- FIA GT Championship - Jetalliance Racing
- Jetalliance Racing - Aston Martin Racing