The 2024 Michelin Cup within the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia is a spectacle, where it is precisely “a tough fight without fear” not only at the absolute top, but also among the protagonists of the category reserved for semi-professional or amateur drivers.
At the Mugello Circuit, yesterday in race 1 Alberto De Amicis, who showed up at the start of the season wearing the insignia of the reigning champion, scored his first success of the year, becoming the fifth different winner in the five races held so far.
A rather rare alternation in the Michelin Cup, where the battle for the title is increasingly tight and now in the standings the top-5 is enclosed in just 8 points. And race 2 today at 12.20 (live on Dazn and www.carreracupitalia.it) is already there knocking on the door.
Francesco Fenici is still at the top, 4th yesterday and with 4 points on the pair Gianluca Giorgi – Paolo Gnemmi. At 8 points he is therefore chasing the already “titled” pair, the one with De Amicis and with Alex De Giacomi, yesterday second at the finish line behind the driver from Guidonia.
The same From Amicis he sees it like this: “It’s been a while since I’ve been on the top step of the podium. It was a very demanding race 1, one of the toughest I’ve ever faced, and I was always in a fight even with the young Pros. After the safety car I saw that Alex was very ‘crunchy’ and I knew that if I had left him a chance he would have tried. I have to say that even a second place would have been fine: this year in terms of the championship you always have to score points and today both he and I recovered well compared to those ahead of us in the standings”.
He also fully relaunched himself after having also imposed himself in Imola, Of Giacomo He only regrets one thing: “Qualifying affected my weekend a bit because we’ve had a good pace since Thursday’s test. When I saw my ideal and the real time I did I was a bit disappointed. However, I’m happy to have recovered in race 1 on an occasion when I strangely made a bad start. I thought I could catch Alberto because I wanted a direct comparison with him, who is very fast and above all with him we have always had fair battles. The championship starts for everyone now because we are all very close and I congratulate Stefanelli for his first podium in the Michelin Cup, even if (jokingly, ed.) Let’s hope he doesn’t get used to it!”.
The new face at the awards ceremony was in fact that of the Tuscan driver and therefore the host at Mugello: “I’m happy – Stefanelli declares –, but I’m half happy because I started second. It was a difficult race but I only found out later. Up until halfway through the race I was convinced I had De Amicis’ pace. In the brawls though I asked a lot of the tyres and in the second part I suffered a lot. The safety car allowed me to bring the tyre pressures back up to speed a bit and at least we got the first podium avoiding making too many ‘blunders’, as we say in Tuscany. But the ambition was different and in race 2 I don’t deny that we’ll try again”.
Stefanelli is chasing the leading five from a little further away (he has collected 26 points so far), but considering De Giacomi’s words, perhaps the championship has started for him too at Mugello: “No, in the sense that we have fewer points. But I came here strongly convinced that I could compete in this ranking, so I leave nothing to chance and I give it my all until the end. Let’s see what happens”.
Stefanelli dedicates a final thought more than legitimately to what happened to him six years ago on his home circuit, that terrible impact with Tommaso Mosca: “Today is an important anniversary, so compared to that episode, this podium is a nice revenge”.
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