There is a new winner in the Carrera Cup Italia racing roll of honor: it is Francesco Braschi, 19 years old from Cattolica and 911 GT3 Cup of the Dinamic Motorsport team. His first success in the Porsche Italia single-make series was wet by the light rain that fell initially and then at times during the entire race 2 of the fourth round of the season, which in addition to bringing an Italian back to the top step of the podium (it hadn’t happened since last October: Simone Iaquinta right here in Imola) confirmed Keagan Masters in second place as on Saturday in race 1 and marked two other important firsts.
That is, the third step of the podium for Oliver Gray, a young driver from Woking in his first season in GT, and the one that also marks the first victory in the Michelin Cup for Cesare Brusa.
Going in order in a very tricky and once again very hard-fought race, at the start everyone lines up with Michelin rain except Flavio Olivieri (Raptor Engineering) and Alex De Giacomi (Tsunami RT), who starting from the back risk the slick card.
Lirim Zendeli was on pole, but the Ombra Racing driver held on to the lead for only one lap, overtaken in sequence first by Marvin Klein and then by Braschi and Masters until he finished only sixth in the numerous battles he had with the contenders in the top five.
Klein, winner yesterday, took the lead by overtaking his German rival on the second lap and had a great opportunity to do a double and significantly close the gap on the absent championship leader Larry Ten Voorde.
Even though he was closely followed by a very fast Braschi, the Frenchman from Target Competition managed to maintain the lead but did not manage the restart phases from the various safety cars (three in total plus a final full course yellow) used by the race direction to recover some cars that had ended up in the gravel.
Two infringements during the restart cost him a 5+5 second penalty, which meant that he was the first to cross the finish line and was only classified seventh, behind Zendeli.
Braschi is then the first Italian winner of the season and on the podium he celebrates the result that also allowed him to win among the Rookies together with Masters and Gray. The Team Q8 HI Perform standard-bearer started third at the start but was burned by Braschi on the first lap, then managing to stay behind him despite the continuous attacks of Alberto Cerqui and the whole string of drivers chasing the podium, from the recovering Sam Jongejan (Fulgenzi Racing) who then spun in the gravel of Tamburello, to Gray himself, from Cerqui to Iaquinta, Zendeli and Bayley Hall.
With Masters third and then “promoted” to second, the last step of the podium remained to be assigned and in the various battles between restarts and final laps the one to grab it was Gray, who with Ombra Racing emerged from the group and completed in the best possible way a weekend that was a bit erratic but undoubtedly highly competitive.
At the finish line, the 19-year-old British driver preceded Simone Iaquinta, a good fourth after yesterday’s podium and always with the knife between his teeth at the wheel of Prima Ghinzani’s 911 GT3 Cup, and a lively Bayley Hall. The young Australian, another representative of the Scholarship Programme, eventually made it into the top-5 and was the first BeDriver standard-bearer at the finish line after Cerqui ran wide at Acque Minerali on the penultimate lap and had to settle for tenth place.
Behind Zendeli in sixth and Klein in seventh and ahead of the driver from Brescia, the top 10 is finally completed by the comebacks of rookie Daniel Gregor (The Driving Experiences) and two-time champion Gianmarco Quaresmini (Tsunami RT), respectively eighth and ninth at the checkered flag.
A top-10 finish and maybe even more was within Olivieri’s reach. As mentioned, the 17-year-old Raptor Engineering driver took a chance on slicks at the start and after a few laps, with the track slowly drying out, he started to lap faster than everyone else (his was the “best lap”, in fact, 9th in 1’54″316).
But the rain, albeit light, started to fall again here and there along the track and the kerb of Rivazza 1 was fatal for the ambitions of the Roman rookie, who ended up in a spin involving various unfortunate protagonists such as Pietro Armanni and the new Miguel Paludo and Domenico Papi, who were forced to stop like Olivieri himself.
In the Michelin Cup, the outsider on dry tyres was De Giacomi, but the Tsunami RT rider, also on the up, also spun, which relegated him to sixth position at the finish line, in the very race that saw the first victory of Cesare Brusa, who also took the category pole.
Behind him, Francesco Fenici (Raptor Engineering) has climbed up the rankings well, returning to the lead in an increasingly competitive standings with today’s second place, and on the podium he precedes his direct rival Alberto De Amicis (Ebimotors), winner yesterday and who in turn finishes ahead of his teammate Paolo Gnemmi (fourth) and the Romanian from Villorba Corse Horia-Traian Chirigut, who in race 2 adds a top-5 finish to the first podium achieved in race 1.
The Carrera Cup Italia will return to action at the Vallelunga racetrack in two weeks on the weekend of September 22nd for the penultimate and already eagerly awaited round of the season before the grand finale in Monza in October.
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