2001 Belgian Prost Grand Prix

The 2001 Belgian Prost Grand Prix was a Prost GP race held on November 24, 2001 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The race was the 19th and final race of the 2001 season. The race, contested over 17 laps was won by Sergej Madunochev who took his second win of the season. It was the final race of the Prost Grand Prix series as it would merge with the CART series the following year.

The race is famously remembered as Voeckler's Miracle as Frédéric-Maxime Voeckler finished second, securing him the Driver's Championship despite missing the first 4 rounds, his team Alstom Grand Prix Engineering also won the Team's Championship as Frédéric-Maxime's brother Jérémy-Étienne finished 8th, they did not enter a second car until the 12th round.

Report

Background

Driver changes

Denis van Walwijk returned to Scuderia Vittore after missing the last round in Brazil due to injury. Mazzacane Motorsport ran a second car for the first time since Austria for Mattias Kjellerup.

Standings

Prior to the race 5 men had a mathematical chance to take the driver's crown, championship leader Voeckler (66 pts.) was 6 points ahead of second placed driver, Charlie Darrell (60 pts.) who was 2 points ahead of Jase van der Boom (58 pts.). Volker Bromberger and Jimmy Rosenforth were both tied 12 points behind the leader (54 pts.), although they could only match Voeckler's points if he failed to score, they would still beat him as they both had more wins.

In the team's championship Voeckler's family-run operation Alstom GPE (81 pts.) led Goldrush Racing (72 pts.) by 9 points with Ambrose-Milan Autosport (63 pts.) the only other team who had a chance at glory as they were another 9 points behind the leader.

Qualifying

Voeckler responded brilliantly to the pressure, taking pole position just 0.60s ahead of Sergej Madunochev with Rosenforth, one of 2 men who had the lowest chance of winning the title, as Voeckler's nearest rival in 3rd. On the other hand, Darrell who was the man most likely points-wise to have a chance at beating Voeckler had one of his worst qualifying performances all year and was stuck in 14th. The Vittores were impressive in 7th and 9th and so were Ambrose-Milan in 4th and 8th while Goldrush made their job of trying to snatch away the team's title difficult with Verwest 11th and van der Boom 16th.

Race

Coming soon