After the all-red podium in Pro-Am class of Race-1, Ferrari’s monopoly continues into the second race of the Campionato Italiano Gran Turismo Sprint at Imola, with AF Corse’s 488 GT3, courtesy of Fuoco-Husdbeth, and RS Racing handled by Di Amato-Vezzoni, occupying first and second.
Cressoni on top. Starting from the front row in the second AF Corse car, Cressoni kept in slipstream of Comandini’s BMW while Hudspeth held the Mercedes behind at bay. Contact between an Audi and Palma’s Mercedes allowed Casé to gain two positions. Setting out from the sixth row, Vezzoni performed consistently allowing him to recoup several positions ahead of the mandatory pit stop. The RS Racing driver was one of the first to pit and hand over to Daniele Di Amato. One lap later, it was the turn of Sean Hudspeth, who, during the previous phases, had made a tidy job of defending his position and that of Lorenzo Casé. While Comandini pitted to hand over the wheel to Johannson, Cressoni stayed out on track and as a consequence of the penalty handed to the BMW for the Race-1 result, Simon Mann was able to inherit his companion’s first position. Fuoco, steering the other AF Corse car, was putting pedal to the metal in a bid to close down the gap with the Swedish driver. With sixteen minutes of racing still to run, an attempt by Veglia to overtake a Lamborghini by out-braking him at the Rivazza bend, concluded with contact with the Ferrari on the way out of the curve. This forced the stewards to deploy the Safety Car which re-bunched the group, which, once the Safety Car had re-entered with few minutes left until the end, set the race up for a thrilling finale.
Fiery finish for Fuoco. Mann headed the pack, but the Mul’s experience allowed him to gain the upper hand and the Lamborghini driver was able to move to the head of the course, followed by Johannson and Fuoco, while Di Amato held sixth position. The 488 GT3s of Fuoco and Di Amato passed Johannson to take second and third positions respectively. Fuoco made repeated attempts on Mul in the final throes of the race, but once again the will to not take risks and throw away an excellent class result prevailed. The chequered flag gave the prize to the Lamborghini of Mul-Postiglione ahead of the Fuoco-Hudspeth Ferrari (first in Pro-Am) and Di Amato-Vezzoni. Eighth final place, fourth in the class, went to Mann-Cressoni, a whisker ahead of the Sernagiotto-Lippi pairing, once again the winners of the GT Light class courtesy of Iron Lynx’s 458 Italia GT3.
Next date. The Campionato Italiano GT returns again to Mugello from 19th to 21st July with the participants of the Sprint series again in the limelight.