Carrera Cup Italy | Imola: Ten Voorde makes no mistakes and takes pole

It all happens in the last 7 minutes with everyone on the track (except a very unlucky Iaquinta) in qualifying for the second round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia underway in Imola. King of the morning is once again Larry Ten Voorde, who conquers both pole positions and the related 4 additional points to extend his lead over Keagan Masters in the championship to 8 points.

The reigning champion earned the start at the pole for today’s race 1 at 3.20pm (live Dazn and www.carreracupitalia.it) clocking a time of 1’43″255 at the end of a “hit and miss” qualifying session between short periods of red flags and full course yellows that broke the pace.

Precisely due to the difficult global conditions found, primarily the slipperiness of the track, the times set remained above the wall of 1 and 43 and precisely due to the unexpected events faced, the opportunity could have been good to surprise the leader of the standings.

Instead, Ten Voorde made no mistakes in the crucial moments of the last minutes, preceding Masters, the current most accredited rival for the title, by 3 tenths. The South African of Team Q8 Hi Perform tried to keep up with the Dutchman of Enrico Fulgenzi Racing, with whom he was the protagonist of an exciting back and forth in the timesheets, but in the end he had to give up and in any case he will sit alongside of the poleman on the front row, a privileged position on a circuit like that of Santerno.

Behind the two pacesetters, Marvin Klein placed third, half a second from the top. The double French Target Competition champion appeared on the ball for the entire session and, although he didn’t find the winning point at the end, he started the weekend in a decidedly better way than he did in Misano.

The same thing was not achieved by Simone Iaquinta, however, who was also expected to redeem himself. A redemption that now becomes very hard. The double champion of the Italian single-make brand had returned to the pits halfway through the session (red flag caused by Giacon’s off-piste, perhaps due to a contact, perhaps due to a contact, at the Variante Gresini) and from that moment on he was no longer able to restart the Prima team’s 911 GT3 Cup Ghinzani, who is already investigating a currently inexplicable fact.

If bad luck hit one of the most awaited protagonists, who will start only 14th in race 1, this time Diego Bertonelli managed to put everything together. The Tuscan from TDE was the author of the fourth fastest time (7 tenths from pole), proving to be the best Italian in qualifying and fully achieving the objective he had set himself on the eve of the official tests.

Lirim Zendeli rose to the top-5 at the end. The German standard bearer of Ombra Racing, who confirms his marked growth in confidence, stopped just 5 thousandths behind Bertonelli and was also the fastest among the riders in the Rookie classification.

8 tenths behind Ten Voorde, the net 44 scored one minute from the end earned Gianmarco Quaresmini sixth place. A step forward for the Brescia driver from Tsunami RT, who preceded Aldo Festante and Francesco Braschi by 1 and 2 tenths respectively (at the top of the “under”), the two Dinamic Motorsport standard-bearers who shared the fourth row.

Not far away, two other very young people from the Scholarship Program complete the top-10: Janne Stiak confirms himself among the most interesting surprises with Target Competition, while Pietro Armanni appears to be improving with Prima Ghinzani’s 911 GT3 Cup with which he preceded the most the youngest ever among those registered in the championship, Nicholas Pujatti, 11th with Villorba Corse in turn ahead of the 2021 champion Alberto Cerqui (BeDriver).

In the Michelin Cup the battle for pole was equally hard fought and the 21st overall time earned Paolo Gnemmi the starting pole in the category. The Ebimotors driver was the fastest in 1’45″588, preceding Gianluca Giorgi (BeDriver) and teammate Alberto De Amicis by 3 tenths.

A nice blitz by the three, who, followed in the category by Stefano Stefanelli (Team Malucelli) and Alex De Giacomi (Tsunami RT), have dug a nice gap compared to the first two in the ranking. Luca Pastorelli (Dinamic Motorsport) in fact only qualified sixth, while leader Francesco Fenici (Raptor Engineering) was eighth.

Qualifying for race 1