While Ten Voorde continues to reap points and the other most anticipated foreign names have also managed to take the satisfaction of a victory or at least a podium, in Porsche Carrera Cup Italia the Italian drivers are suffering more than they should, as well as expectations. And in the third round of the Mugello Circuit, the mid-season one that took place last weekend, there was no reversal of the trend, despite a few flashes here and there.
Taking the most obvious example, at the beginning of the season it was really difficult to think that the three Italians who had already won the title, Iaquinta, Quaresmini and Cerqui, would never have reached the podium in the first half of the championship (3 rounds for a total of 6 races and therefore 18 steps on the podium).
The circumstances in which this happened, including some very tasty missed opportunities, are of course different. The common denominator is that at Mugello, mostly for technical reasons, the three found themselves battling, even among themselves, just inside or just outside the top-10.
In short, a weekend made up of placings and some nice overtaking but lacking in real satisfaction and which on the eve instead brought with it an evident desire to take a resounding revenge after a rather complicated or, at best, fluctuating start to the season.
Quaresmini, actually happy with how the car was behaving, paid for an unlucky qualifying session in which he took to the track with a less than ideal level of tire pressure. In race 1 he recovered by overtaking, in race 2 he instead ran into difficulty.
Iaquinta and Cerqui, on the other hand, were not in the right place in terms of set-up and both are already looking forward to returning to Imola after the summer break. Iaquinta is betting on that appointment and for him also on the one in Monza in the Supercup on September 1st, who underlines: “Mugello was a difficult weekend from a technical point of view and unfortunately this year for various reasons it wasn’t the first. I’m sorry about that, but we also have to be patient”.
“We have been growing – explains the standard-bearer of Prima Ghinzani – and in race 2 the car improved a lot compared to race 1, even if at the beginning they pushed me off the track at Arrabbiata 2 and I had to recover some positions lost in the episode. I did everything I could and the much faster pace seen on Sunday means that we acted in the right direction. With the team we still have a lot of commitments and there is still work to do, but I am sure that after the break we will be ready.”
Along the same lines Cerqui: “We can’t hide that it was a weekend below our expectations. In the test I finished first and the car seemed very good, but already in the afternoon when the temperatures rose we struggled with the setup and race pace. We worked to improve the situation in view of qualifying and we thought we had managed to find the right balance, but we still had great difficulties with the rear. I struggled in race 1, while in the second race we went a bit better. We don’t lose heart: we will have time to analyse all the data and arrive in Imola full of determination”.
Two other protagonists (effectively missed) at Mugello have never won the title but one, Bertonelli, came close to it on at least two occasions, while in the past Festante has already been awarded as the best young promise and now boasts a certain amount of experience, further increased this year with his full-time participation in the Supercup.
Competitive in terms of performance thanks also to a 911 GT3 Cup well set up by the TDE team, Bertonelli had the great chance of starting from the front row in race 2, but a jump start and the inevitable 5-second penalty denied him the third position in which he had crossed the finish line in the wake of Ten Voorde and Klein.
A “light-heartedness” that cost a lot and is a real shame for the Tuscan driver, who will have the chance to make up for it and in general among the Italians so far he is the one who has managed to earn the most tempting chances, even if they then did not materialize.
Festante also had his best chance, in his case in race 1, when he started third on the starting grid. Then, having dropped to the top-5, the driver from Campania went off the track at San Donato, resulting in his retirement, but he still managed to redeem himself at least partially in race 2, where he obtained fourth place, his best result of the season.
“The feelings were very good – declared the Dinamic Motorsport driver after Mugello –we made a good step compared to the previous races especially in terms of speed. I felt good and I’m sorry I had to sacrifice race 1 because of my mistake. In race 2 I used new tires, but I didn’t have the benefit I expected. The level is confirmed to be very high and given the epilogue of the first challenge I tried to go with my best pace to collect points”.
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