The magical moment of Larry Ten Voorde continues in race 1 of the second round of the Italian Porsche Carrera Cup. The reigning champion dominates from pole position, manages two safety cars perfectly and with also the fastest lap (1’44″560 on the 14th lap) takes everything on Saturday in the Italian single-brand championship, breaking the resistance of Keagan Masters and Marvin Klein, who they sprinted behind him as he started.
With 5 laps faster in the first five laps, the Dutchman from Fulgenzi Racing immediately took off and only on lap 6 and lap 10, with the race neutralized due to some gravel exits at the rear, was the competition able to get back in the wake.
However, Ten Voorde did not make any mistakes on the two restarts and at the finish line he celebrated his second hurray of the season in the Carrera Cup Italia, extending his lead in the standings over Masters. The South African official driver of Team Q8 Hi Perform was an excellent actor in race 1 and the place of honor, never questioned by Klein, still represents a good haul also due to the pace shown.
For the Frenchman from Target Competition, however, the championship actually starts from the Santerno circuit after the difficult start in Misano. Klein resisted Diego Bertonelli’s attacks at the start also thanks to the brawl that broke out with Lirim Zendeli and Gianmarco Quaresmini and then had no particular problems managing third position, which allowed him to celebrate his first podium of the season (the second in Imola after the one in the Supercup two weeks ago).
At the finish line, the trio of foreign riders is followed by Francesco Braschi, fourth. The young Catholic driver of DInamic Motorsport found good confirmation among the Rookies, in whose classification he is the winner after having prevailed in the initial duels between Bertonelli and Quaresmini, both passing after Piratella on the first lap, and in particular after having also overtaken Zendeli at Tosa in the next round.
The top-5 is completed by Bertonelli. The Tuscan from TDE also got the better of Zendeli in the final while the German standard-bearer from Ombra Racing had to manage a tire situation that had become critical and in any case managed to finish sixth.
In the battles for the top-5, however, after the second restart Quaresmini was out of the game. The double champion of the Tsunami team was the author of a “long” at Rivazza 1 which dropped him from sixth to 17th and out of the points zone, allowing Janne Stiak to gain a further position.
The progression shown by the very young Target Competition standard bearer is noteworthy, as he never gave up in the various duels and at the finish line achieved a solid seventh place ahead of the comeback duo of champions Alberto Cerqui, eighth with BeDriver, and Simone Iaquinta, good at moving up from 14th after the technical problems suffered in qualifying and finishing ninth with Prima Ghinzani.
In a top-10 final which due to various brawls does not host two protagonists such as Aldo Festante (11th) and Pietro Armanni (13th), the last available place is grabbed by Bayley Hall. The Australian from BeDriver had never seen the Imola circuit and although the rain didn’t even allow him to measure himself in free practice, he always remained hooked to the train of the best, climbing up to tenth position.
Having said that there are some contacts currently being examined by the commissioners both among the Pros and in the Michelin Cup, the latter greets Paolo Gnemmi’s first centre. The gentleman driver of Ebimotors defended the pole position won in qualifying, obtaining a precious full of points, while his teammate and reigning champion Alberto De Amicis ended up out of contention already on the first lap, for whom he continues curse of race 1 (already in Misano he was forced to retire).
The driver from Guidonia came into contact with De Giacomi (fighting with Gnemmi) at Piratella in an attempt to overtake him and in the episode he suffered a radiator failure which forced him immediately into the pits. Like him, De Giacomi, second and then third for a long time after an excellent start, slipped back on the last lap due to a spin at Rivazza 2 in a duel with Cesare Brusa.
Gianluca Giorgi then finished on the podium with Gnemmi, back on the ball and tomorrow on pole in race 2 of the Michelin Cup with BeDriver, and Brusa, third and on his first podium in the Carrera Cup Italia in his debut season with Prima Ghinzani.
Behind the first three are therefore the two leaders in the standings, Luca Pastorelli, the standard bearer of Dinamic Motorsport who escaped an off-piste at Tamburello in the start brawl and was fourth at the finish line, and Francesco Fenici, who completed the top-5 of category and collected valuable points with Raptor Engineering after a qualifying conditioned by some technical problems.
Tomorrow (Sunday) we return to the track for race 2 to complete the weekend on the banks of the Santerno: appointment at 12.00 as always live and on demand on Dazn (with subscription or also with free mode) and in live streaming on www.carreracupitalia.it.
In the front row again Ten Voorde (in the meantime he immediately flew to Germany to also participate in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring carrying out night stints) and Masters followed by Klein and Bertonelli.
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