The final act of the Trofeo Pirelli Europa unfortunately ended under the Safety Car regime, but this absolutely does not take away the merit of Eliseo Donno, who in Race 2 at Imola signed his second victory of the season, becoming one of the favorites for the World Final. tomorrow.
After the contact with Thomas Neubauer who had practically eliminated him at the start in Race 1, this time the Italian driver made the most of the pole position and immediately set the pace in front of the group, and neither did the champion Doriane Pin, who in the very early stages she managed to get rid of John Wartique with determination, she managed to keep her pace.
Donno had managed to escape but, close to the middle of the race, one of the drivers of the Asia Pacific Challenge, Baby Kei, turned around at the Tamburello and ended up in the gravel. A situation that forced Race Direction to send the Safety Car to the track, eliminating its advantage.
However, what happened did not put pressure on the rider of the Best Lap, who at the restart reiterated once again that he had more than the competition and almost immediately rebuilt a margin of a couple of seconds on the Pin, which he then maintained until a few minutes from the end Claus Zibrandtsen ended up in the sand at the Tamburello following a contact.
Also in this case the Race Direction neutralized the race, but unfortunately there was not enough time to get it to resume, so the positions remained frozen until the checkered flag, with Donno winning in front of the Pin.
It is a pity that the race actually ended prematurely because the fight for third position between Thomas Neubauer and Adrian Sutil was heating up, with the former driver becoming more and more pressing, but in the end he had to settle of the “wooden medal”.
To complete the top 5 we find Nicola Marinangeli, while Wartique was forced to retire in the early stages of the race: the second classified in the championship was hit at Rivazza by Nigel Schoonderwoerd, then penalized with a drive through, and forced to surrender.
# 27 Marco Pulcini, Al Tayer Motors
Photo by: AG Photo / Manganaro
Also colorless was the race of the outgoing world champion Luka Nurmi, who finished sixth after being stuck throughout the race behind the Japanese Yudai Uchida, winner of the Asia Pacific Challenge race, but also good at being the first to cross the finish line among the Pirelli AM pilots.
In fact, in Pirelli AM Europe the victory went to Marco Pulcini, eighth overall at the checkered flag, who in this way also secured second place in the championship, behind the champion Ange Barde, who retired in the early stages of the race. We can bet that tomorrow he will try to make up for it in the World Final.
Christian Brunsborg and Hanno Laskowski got on the podium together with Pulcini, but among them the other Japanese Nobuhiro Imada, who like his compatriot Uchida did not take long to find the feeling with the Imola track technician.
As far as the Asia Pacific Shell Cup is concerned, the redemption of leader Kazuyuki Yamaguchi has arrived, who until this afternoon had seen his rival Kanji Yagura dominate, only fourth in Race 2, behind Eric Cheung and Motohiro Isozaki. The gap between the top two in the championship should therefore be 21 points now.
On the other hand, it was all easy in the Coppa Shell AM for Shigeru Kamiue, who had to do nothing but show up at the finish line to win, given that his only rival Kei, as mentioned, ended the race in the gravel of the Tamburello, interrupting his streak of three consecutive successes and allowing the rival to stretch in the standings.
FERRARI CHALLENGE – Imola: Race 2 Pirelli EU-APAC Trophy
# 402 Yudai Uchida, Scuderia Red
Photo by: AG Photo / Manganaro
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