Normally the free practice session doesn’t provide high dramas…but this time the BMW team would have to face a huge amount of work just to ensure the second car of Comandini-Colombo would start in the races, as Comandini – on his very first lap out of the pits – had a monster shunt that destroyed most of the front of his BMW Z4.
The car wouldn’t take part in either qualifying session, but the team was confident of making the races.
But this wasn’t the only noteworthy incident, with the two qualifying sessions each providing an unexpected pole-position – Michela Cerruti’s ROAL BMW for Race 1 and the Ebi Motors Porsche of Postiglione for Race 2.
For the morning race Cerruti pipped the Black Bull Ferrari of Maino (another surprise) by less than two tenths, while third was the returning Lamborghini of Giacomo Piccini (not a real surprise) and fourth the Antonelli Porsche of Mapelli. Cirò and Sanna in the second Gallardo made up the third row…but where were the Audis? Sonvico was only seventh, almost a second down, and Kristofferson was ninth and ahead only of the gentleman-driver La Mazza in the 458 Italia; perhaps this time the BOP hadn’t done the Ingolstadt armada any favours.
For Race 2 Postiglione drove a perfect lap and made it a very happy birthday present for Enrico Borghi, patron of the Ebi Motors team.
Second yet again was the Black Bull Ferrari of Venturi, third the first “Bull in the Ring” of Barri, and a very angry fourth was Frassineti in the first of the Audi R8s. This time it would be Row 3 for the Race 1 polesitter Cerruti and Lancieri in another Ferrari. Row 4 was made up by the “not quite old men”, Dindo Capello and Fabio Mancini, and a very disappointed Passuti was P9 for the Antonelli team in his Porsche GT3. The last GT3 car on the grid was the second Gallardo of Eugenio Amos.
For the Cup class the pole went in Race 1 to Jacoma and for Race 2, as expected, to Fabio Babini. It remained an all-Porsche class for the moment.
Race 1
The weather was almost perfect for the first race of the second round of the Italian GT Championship – on its only trip outside Italy for the 2013 season – with the second bit of good news being that the very heavily damaged #1 BMW Z4 was ready to race, thanks to an all-nighter from the ROAL mechanics (up until 5.10 a.m.); making for a very happy Stefano Comandini and Stefano Colombo.
After quite a long starting procedure, with two extra laps to get temperatures into the Avon tyres (still a very strange product to understand, the common paddock word says), and with pole on the ‘wrong’ side of the track, the race started with the order drastically revised by the time the field reached Turn 1. Maino jumped into the lead, with Mapelli second, while Cerruti had fallen to third. Kristofferson and Cirò had a small coming together, leaving a very smart and lucky Piccini in fourth. A lap later, Mapelli forced Maino wide of the normal line with a fine move at Turn 1 and took the lead. Maino found himself to be like a fish out of water, losing another place to Piccini at the Remus hairpin, and then Michela Cerruti also took position from the Ferrari.
Behind the top four cars came Sanna in fifth, La Mazza sixth, then the two Audis and Lucchini, who were unable to make up ground. Comandini, starting from the back of the grid, was circulating normally, and that was the most important thing after his big shunt of Saturday morning.
A lap later, with no changes in the top four positions, a move by Sonvico on La Mazza gave him P6, and a lap later Kristofferson successfully made the same move in the black Ferrari. Two places back, Comandini got the most out of his car and overtook Lucchini, who was now in deep trouble with his Porsche – it looked like Postiglione would have a very hard job to do in the second part of the race, just to finish in the top ten.
The trio upfront gradually eased away from Maino and began a good and clean battle amongst themselves, but no one was able to make a move until the pit window opened. A TV replay showed a spinning black Ferrari, but with no penalty forthcoming it looked like driver error.
The race pace was very fast and the midway point was rapidly approaching, with the slower drivers now switching to the faster ones for the last part of the race. Upfront, Mapelli was still leading with Piccini second and Cerruti third, and none of them would be making their stops until the very last moments of the window.
After the driver changes, and as predicted, both Porsches were well down the order, with the solo-racer Michela Cerruti shown as the new leader. Venturi-(Maino) was second, but we had lost Amos-(Piccini) in the white Lamborghini, apparently due to a very slow driver change. So the new third-place car was the revamped Audi R8 of Capello-(Sonvico), a few tenths in front of the second Lamborghini of Barri-(Sanna), the second Audi of Frassineti-(Kristofferson) and the “miracle” second BMW Z4 of Colombo-(Comandini). Seventh was Amos, followed by the two Porsches and the two Ferraris of Mancini-(La Mazza) and Lancieri-(Cirò).
The final part of the race provided a number of incidents, the first one coming 15 minutes from the end with a rash move by Colombo on Amos into the first corner. The result was a spinning Lamborghini and a place gained by the BMW, but no penalty was issued to the German car. At the head of the field, meanwhile, Cerruti and Venturi were nose to tail, and the final minutes were shaping up to be very exciting – could the lady score another victory after the historic one at Mugello the previous year? Behind this duo, Capello couldn’t escape from Barri, but, with the same engine in both cars, no change in position took place.
Two laps later a slower Cup Porsche compromised the exit of Cerruti out of Turn 1, and the rapid Ferrari of Venturi needed no more invitation and overtook the BMW into the Remus hairpin, becoming the new leader of the race.
The final drama also affected the top places. Just as the penultimate lap started, Cerruti’s BMW slowed suddenly and provided her with an unfortunate end to the race on what had, up until this moment, been a very good weekend. Venturi crossed the line first, and took the first win of the season for Maranello and the Black Bull team.
Capello finished in a very strong second place for Audi, while Sanna took the lower step of the podium. Fourth was the “miracle” car of Colombo, who overtook the second Audi on the last lap, thanks to a spin by Frassineti. Sixth and seventh were the two Porsches of Passuti and Postiglione, followed by the two other Ferraris of Mancini and Lancieri. The second Lamborghini of Amos finished tenth and last in GT3.
The Cup class was a two-part fight, with Jacoma starting very quickly and even mixing it with the GT3s before the driver change, after which a combination of the (success) time penalty and a much slower teammate, Pan, enabled Fabio Babini – who had taken his car over from Bianco – to cross the line first.
Third was Donaviti-Gioia. The two other cars of Galbiati-Brambati and Magli retired from the race with major engine blow-ups.
But the dramas were not yet over, with some hard post-race penalties being dished out by the stewards – 25 seconds each for “exceeding the track limits” for the Antonelli Porsche of Passuti and the two Ferraris of Mancini and Lancieri. The order didn’t change much, but who knows what a point or two can mean later in the season.
So after another little moment of history (the first ever pole for a woman in an Italian GT race) and the first Ferrari win into the season, attention now switched to race 2, when the time penalties, now much more spread, were unlikely to be a major factor in the overall victory.
Race 2
The weather in the Austrian Alps didn’t have any unpleasant surprises for the second race of the weekend, and a rather surprising 27°C air temperature greeted the Italian GT field.
Michela Cerruti’s retirement was caused by an electrical issue with the fuel pump and had been sorted by the team, but the black Lamborghini of Sanna-Barri would not be participating after Barri pitted at the end of the formation lap. The team tried everything to discover the problem, but ultimately call it a day for the Imperiale team; so we were down to ten in GT3 and four in the Cup class. The rather small field took the green flag with barely anyone in their proper spots, but so far so good and, from the roulette of the first corner, Postiglione emerged first followed by Venturi, Frassineti, Lancieri, Cerruti, Mancini, Capello, Passuti and Amos. Colombo started last, but he was already on the tail of the last car in class, the Lamborghini of Amos.
At the end of the first lap, Mancini tried a very optimistic move inside Michela Cerruti’s BMW. But instead of the expected result, the gods of racing smiled on the female racer and it was the black, and guilty, Ferrari of Mancini that ended up spinning and losing time, while Michela lost only a handful of positions.
A lap later the TV pictures showed the lone Lamborghini of Amos with heavy front-end damage, and almost a second later another damaged car, the Z4 of Colombo. The white Z4 was able to continue with only cosmetic damage, while Amos retired his car a lap later.
Upfront, apparently unaware of the mayhem behind, Postiglione had his hands full trying to contain Venturi who was very close to the back of the Porsche.
The slowing pace of the first two cars enabled Frassineti, Lancieri and Capello to join the party, with a five-car-train emerging with barely enough space to put a cigarette-paper between any of them. Passuti was now sixth, some four seconds down on the “big train”, then came the two “lucky” BMWs and the “bad guy” Ferrari of Mancini.
Two laps later, Capello shook the lead-order up in the space of two corners by first overtaking Lancieri, than making the best out of a very sideways moment by Frassineti to move into third. The train was now split into three, with Postiglione and Venturi some seconds clear of Capello, while Frassineti, Lancieri and Passuti had formed another little “express”.
Frassineti and Lancieri changed places three times in the same lap and, while Passuti was unable to gain any spots, the BMW’s were now joining in behind the Antonelli Porsche. Just before the driver changes started, Lancieri was able to overtake Frassineti for fourth overall.
Exactly at the midway point, 24 minutes in, Venturi tried another bad move inside of Postiglione, who apparently had another pair of eyes in the side of his head and somehow escaped a certain shunt. But the Black Bull Ferrari saw red and touched into a spin the second Porsche of Mapelli-(Passuti), which already changed drivers. The spinning Porsche hit the right rear corner of the Ferrari, destroying the 458’s suspension but leaving the GT3 R with only minor damage, and it appeared that justice had prevailed on this occasion.
As each driver handed over the reins to their respective teammates, the order saw Lucchini-(Postiglione) still leading from Cirò-(Lancieri), Kristofferson-(Frassineti), Michela Cerruti, Comandini-(Colombo) and Sonvico-(Capello). Seventh was the Porsche of Mapelli-(Passuti), followed, almost a lap down, by the Ferrari of La Mazza-(Mancini) in eighth.
Lucchini, perhaps the slowest of the second drivers, was likely to be an easy target for his pursuers, and indeed the gap was going down – but not as fast as Cirò, Kristofferson and the two BMWs had hoped. As the clock ticked down and the last two laps began, a five-car-train had again formed upfront. Lucchini was doing a fine job of covering every possible overtaking place for Cirò, who was by now being pressed hard by Kristofferson – himself having his rear view mirror full of BMWs.
As the last lap began, Lucchini exited the last corner a little too slowly and Cirò was alongside the EbiMotors car. But there was no space to pass and Cirò decided to wait – but no further opportunity materialized ahead and Luigi Lucchini won Race 2 in convincing style, making no mistakes and to the utter joy of his teammate, Postiglione plus Enrico Borghi and all the EbiMotors team.
Cirò finished second, while third was Kristofferson. Fourth and fifth were the two BMWs of Cerruti and Comandini, while Sonvico was unable to do better than sixth. Mapelli finished with a much-damaged car in seventh.
The Cup class saw a reversal of the morning’s 1-2 finish, with this time Pan-Jacoma finishing in front of Babini-Bianco. The title will probably be down to these two pairs at the end of the season.
After a rather “normal” Race 1, the second one delivered a kaleidoscope of emotions, with plenty of highs and some lows. In the end, though, the second round of the 2013 Italian series, despite all the bad moves done by the BOP, showed that the field is so evenly matched that the difference between winning and finishing outside of the top five could be a very thin line. The series will now go back to Italy, where it will visit Imola twice in the space of three weeks for Round 3 and 4. Last year was a Porsche feud and, if the BOP allows, we could have the first runaway break in the standings, which currently see Postiglione-Lucchini on top with 56 points from Passuti-Mapelli on 44; one better than Lancieri-Cirò. The best placed Audi is driven by Kristofferson-Frassineti, but even the Lamborghinis, hit hard by luck this time, are not out of the title chase.
Gabriele Tosi
All images @acisportitalia
