Carrera Cup Italia | Vallelunga: Stiak with record in the test!

Janne Stiak is the man, or rather the boy, given his 17 years, of the Thursday of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia, which inaugurated the fifth round of the season with today’s pre-race test, which will take place tomorrow afternoon.

The Target Competition rookie, however, did not limit himself to putting together a good 48 laps before the rain made its appearance on the Roman circuit, effectively interrupting the tests after 3 hours and 10 minutes (there were 50 minutes left) and obtaining the best time: by lapping in 1’33″977, in fact, the blond German actually broke the track reference for the latest generation 911 GT3 Cups without ABS.

The only one to go under the 1:34 barrier, Stiak lapped 2 tenths faster than the 2023 pole obtained by Matteo Malucelli (1’34″163, set in June and which remains the official limit). For what it may be worth in a test, the result in any case defines a value and also gives hope to the Alto Adige team which also includes Marvin Klein, competing for the title with Larry Ten Voorde and Keagan Masters.

The three and a lively Simone Iaquinta are also protagonists at the top of the time list. It was to be expected, after all. Ten Voorde climbed to second place with a lap of 1’34″194, also on times already for pole with the 911 GT3 Cup of Fulgenzi Racing, while Masters finished with the third time at 4 tenths from Stiak under the official banner of Q8 Hi Perform.

The top-5 of the day was also marked by the Prima Ghinzani team, with Iaquinta 6 tenths behind the leader and Pietro Armanni a neck behind for what was a top session for the young rider from Brescia, like Stiak, another under of the Scholarship Programme.

Klein then finished in the same tenth, preceding the Dinamic duo with Aldo Festante and Francesco Braschi at 7 tenths from the pacesetter and only one thousandth of a second of difference between them. Among the youngsters, Flynt Schuring also did well, ninth and on the same limits in view of a weekend in which he will go hunting for confirmation after the good results shown with Fulgenzi Racing at Mugello.

Alberto Cerqui placed himself in the top 10 with the tenth time under the 1:35 wall, with BeDrivver preceding his teammate Bayley Hall, author of a clear 35. The two also made some “exploratory” passages with a wet track right at the end of the session.

Having said that Lirim Zendeli, the current leader of the Rookie standings with Ombra Racing, finished with the 15th time, in the Michelin Cup the leader and home driver Francesco Fenici with the Raptor team had started the session very well. After the first hour, however, his direct rivals climbed up and Cesare Brusa in the last minutes of dry track then climbed to the top with Prima Ghinzani thanks to the best time in the category obtained in 1’35″648.

Close and under 1.36, however, are the closest pursuers, led by Ebimotors standard bearer Paolo Gnemmi, followed by his teammate Alberto De Amicis (another home rider who is chasing Fenici by just one point in the standings) and by the two-time title winner Alex De Giacomi (Tsunami RT)

Today’s test was briefly interrupted on three occasions by three red flags due to the otherwise harmless excursions of the returning Marco Galassi, Stefano Stefanelli and Filippo Fant, while Horst-Felix Felbermayr paid with a 10-minute stop in the pit lane for excessive abuse of the track limit at turn 7, together with turn 13, which proved to be the two most treacherous points in which to commit the infringement.

Now the ball is in the court of the race weekend, the crucial penultimate event of a truly intense and high-quality season that is definitively entering its decisive phase: the 30 drivers seen in action today will meet again on the track tomorrow (Friday) starting at 3:00 pm for the traditional free practice session (60 minutes) that precedes qualifying and the two races scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, live on Dazn.

Test times