The 2023 Ferrari World Finals began today on the Mugello track with the first of the 3 Qualifying sessions scheduled for today. We are talking about the official tests dedicated to the drivers racing in the Coppa Shell AM, with Motohiko Isozaki taking pole position after a duel on the edge of thousandths with Martinus Richter.
The Japanese driver stopped the clock in 1’53″531, preceding his rival from the Mertel Motorsport team by just 62 thousandths. Richter was the only one able to undermine the driver from the Cornes Motors Shiba team, although Kirk Baerwaldt managed to improve quite a bit during the last attempt made, moving within 3 tenths of the time that gave pole to Isozaki.
Nice duel for fourth place instead, with Paolo Scudieri and Josef Schumacher finding themselves fighting in the final moments. The Sa.Mo.Car driver prevailed, but by just 16 thousandths of a second.
Stefano Marrazzi, sixth, is the first driver to show a gap of more than 1 second from Isozaki, but he still had the merit of preceding Henrik Kamstrup by a tenth and earning himself a better starting position for the first of the three World Finals scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Tommy Lindroth qualified eighth alone, far behind those in front of him, but with over a second ahead of those chasing him, that Bruce Cleveland who yesterday tried to beat Lisa Clark (today only 14th) and win the title, but without luck despite having decided to take risks during the race which was damp from the rain.
Jeffrey Nunberg completes the Top 10 of the first World Qualifying, preceding teammate Roger Monteforte by just 6 hundredths and Pino Frascaro by 3 tenths. Dana Goodwin, due to a slight off-piste, convinced the race direction to display the only red flag of the session to allow the track marshals to clean the road surface from the gravel brought onto the track by the 488 Challenge Evo number 346.
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