In their first appearance at a race weekend in Vallelunga, Marvin Klein and the Target Competition team, as teammate Janne Stiak had already done in Thursday’s test, confirmed the Alto Adige team at the top of the fifth round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia also in Friday’s free practice.
It is a message that is worth the one launched at the championship by the already two-time French champion, Phe challenges Larry Ten Voorde and Keagan Masters from a currently privileged position. Klein is third in the standings and must recover 11 points to the Dutch reigning champion and 2 to the South African rival.
Ten Voorde ended today’s session early (he returned to the pits with 8 minutes to go when the second full course yellow of the day was called) and settled for the 15th fastest time overall, actually looking a little annoyed as soon as he got out of the car, although Fulgenzi Racing only reassured him: “Everything’s OK, he had completed the planned work”.
Surely in tomorrow morning’s qualifying they will also have to deal with him, while for Masters, who was an excellent protagonist on the podium at Vallelunga in his debut year 2022, the signals coming from Team Q8 Hi Perform, whose 911 GT3 Cup is technically followed by Ombra Racing, are decidedly encouraging.
In free practice, the Bergamo-based team placed Lirim Zendeli in third place and Oliver Gray in fifth, while Masters was seventh: therefore three cars in the top positions.
Remembering the excellent performance of Francesco Braschi at leading the Italian team, second and quite happy with the work done during the session together with Dinamic Motorsport, the Target Competition team remained the… target.
Thursday Stiak and Friday Klein, two clues that will only be seen on Saturday morning if they turn into evidence in the… official test.
And if Klein (or at least Stiak) will make the winning move for the pole position, which would also be worth the first, very important 2 points of the weekend in Rome. The French driver seemed rather satisfied at the end of the free practice: “Start the weekend like this – he declared – It wasn’t bad at all. We’re working on the car and I’m working on myself and we’ve improved a lot, we’ve taken the right direction but now it’s essential to continue like this”.
Because of course it’s still just the beginning and what matters will come soon: “There is always room for improvement – Klein then continues –; that’s what I always look for, that’s why I’ll continue to focus on myself and the team is doing a great job”.
With the results at stake on the border between 1:33 and 1:34, it is difficult to make predictions for qualifying, but the air of a record is certainly in the air, even if to succeed it is always crucial to put everything together and among other things, a bit like in Misano, in Vallelunga in particular traffic could also play a prominent role and in fact it is an eventuality feared a bit by all the big names.
“In qualifying – concludes the Frenchman – I think we will have better grip and slightly different temperatures, so we will still need to adapt. It will be a qualifying with everyone really close, so we will also have to be good at finding ourselves in the best position for a good lap and in the best conditions, in any case the work that matters most will have to be completed in the race”.
The appointment is then for Saturday morning (tomorrow) at 9.45 with the qualifications and at 16.40 with race 1, live on Dazn and www.carreracupitalia.it.
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