Grands Travaux Inutiles

Team History

Grands Traveaux Inutiles was founded in 2012 in an abandoned Metro Tunnel in Charleroi, initially simply being called Métro Leger De charleroi. That season the team raced in the Street Racing League fielding rally driver François Duval and former Minardi test-driver Chanoch Nissany. MLDC used Megatron-engines they found somewhere in a second-hand german submarine. Although the series went defunct soon, MLDC had it's share of succes with Nissany being 5th in the championship standings after 3 races. Also a car was entered in the REECCS for the by then unknown Simon Garfünkel. Renamed Grands Traveaux Inutiles, a word commonly used in Belgian urbanographic terminology, GTI took over the Wartburg works entry from RonDen Racing Engineering. The car was further tuned by Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz, who plans to destroy the FRWRS-universe. Funding was provided by Napoleon Bonbon. It is up until today unclear who actually founded the team. Rumours have it that it is a joint-venture between so-called Urban explorers and local drug dealers.

Rejects of LFS

After a year of relative silence, they entered the Rejects of LFS 2014 season. As lead driver Simon Garfünkel, who had been sacked by RonDen Racing Engineering, was chosen. The second car was available for anybody who wanted to drive. Soon GTI became the next victim of the infamous Scuderia Alitalia talent program, signing their driver Stefan Kuntz. The sponsorless GTI car, whose livery was inspire by an old Charleroi subway, was very uncompetive, although they scored a surprise victory in the second race of the year, with Kuntz winning in front of teammate Garfünkel. Investigations about that race are still going on, as GTI had been rumoured to sabotage some other teams, which could explain their sudden competiveness. When Kuntz received a ban for dangerous driving after round 4, he was replaced by Nobushige Fukuda, who proved to be somewhat decent, although unspectacular, his best results being one third and one fourth place. Certainly spectacular was Garfünkel, often crashing into his own teammate and pitcrew. His inability to drive in a pitlane proved to be fatal, as he got disqualified in the ninth round of the season, and banned for the remainder of the season. His seat was taken by the talented Roberto Dinella who scored another second place, securing a sixth place in the constructors championship.

Future

Running a sponsorless car, plus the huge costs of repair damages, led to Grands Traveaux Inutiles searching for some major backing. This was found in Cillit Bang!, who were used to huge repair bills, as they sponsored the Trabant of Gio Van Dycke in REECCS in 2011. This ties led to GTI renaming their Zytek engines to Trabant. On the driver front, Garfünkel will return to do a bid at championship glory, while Fukuda has been retained. Also a deal had been signed with Avon to provide them tyres.