Today at noon a game 2 awaits them (live on Dazn and www.carreracupitalia.it) even more crucial than yesterday, but in the meantime Marvin Klein, Keagan Masters and Simone Iaquinta managed to achieve the minimum objective they had set themselves on the eve of the fourth round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia in Imola.
The first two have fully relaunched themselves in the championship. The absence of leader Larry Ten Voorde was the right opportunity and even if the work will have to be done today Masters is now at minus 26 points and Klein has closed to minus 36. And the two now “mark” each other, too, to hear their statements. Also because, in the case of not winning the title, a second place behind only Ten Voorde would still be considered a good result.
Klein, who is increasingly at ease with Target Competition and yesterday won race 1 by resisting Masters’ attacks for a long time and managing three safety cars, commented as follows at the end: “It was a great race for everyone, including me obviously. Behind me Keagan had a great pace, I was pushing but he was really fast! I had to defend myself a lot from the constant attacks, it went better under the safety car, but I had to manage the restarts and it wasn’t easy. I struggled a lot, that’s why I’m very happy with this win, the team did a great job. It was tough but that’s racing and we know it. It can’t be any closer than this! I can’t wait for race 2, it will be tough again but we’ll see”.
Despite not being able to make the decisive overtaking move, Masters, who made an excellent start in the 911 GT3 Cup of Team Q8 Hi Perform (immediately overtaking Francesco Braschi), was also smiling after the podium: “The car was fantastic, thank you very much (in Italian, ed.) to the team, they have developed a great car after qualifying, when we still had pace but traffic was a problem. Klein had a great race, the safety cars took away some time from me but that’s racing, he did his job well and didn’t even leave me a gap to overtake him, so congratulations to him. I’m still happy for the team and I’m waiting for the next race. The championship is still open, after all we’re only halfway and Klein is also slowly climbing back towards my second position, we have to keep an eye on him too, we’ll do it in race 2″.
Iaquinta deserves a separate mention. The Prima Ghinzani standard bearer on the Santerno circuit finally obtained his first podium of the season, but he also gave his usual race full of grit and determination, as well as speed, of course.
The third place obtained yesterday in Imola means a lot to the two-time champion of the Carrera Cup Italia and his hope is that he has really taken “the monkey off his shoulders” and that he can start a new championship.
At the end of the race, the embrace with the family and the team was also emotional, the human culmination of the heated battle experienced shortly before on the track: “Great race – said Iaquinta –; I made a mistake at the start but then I recovered because I really didn’t want to give up, it wasn’t possible that this race could go wrong too. So I gave it my all to get on the podium, I gave 110% and then I even felt faint for a moment, also from the emotion, but I recovered immediately. Finally we are on the podium, it’s the first of the season but I hope it’s also the first of a long series because we have been fast since the beginning of the season but partly due to bad luck and partly for one reason or another we have never made it happen. I thank Prima Ghinzani because they always give me a competitive 911 GT3 Cup, this is a team result and now we continue like this”.
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