The Vallelunga Gold Cup meeting, aka the 6 Hours of Rome, held on Sunday saw the EuroInternational Ligier JSP3 of Giorgio Mondini, Andrea Dromedari and Davide Uboldi take the win ahead of the Kaspersky Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 of Giancarlo Fisichella, Marco Cioci and Alexander Moiseev.
The Lazarus Team Lamborghini Huracán GT3 of Artur Janosz, Nicola De Marco and Nathanael Berthon came home to complete the podium.
There was bitter disappointment for the pole setting defending Champions Guglielmo Belotti and Ivan Bellarosa as they pulled into the pits at the end of the formation lap, an overnight slog to repair damage after a fire in the Peugeot powered CN Wolf not enough it seems.
The early stages of the race, with a fairly meagre grid, saw an epic battle for the lead as Fisichella fended off the Ligier, Mondini at the wheel.
Behind there was trouble for Jaime Melo in the Easy Race Ferrari 488 GT3 after a clash with Alex Frassineti’s Ombra Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3. That cost both teams an early and time consuming stop.
Robert Kubica’s hopes in the Oregon Renault RS.01 disappeared in the 3rd hour after a clash between his car and a BMW Z4 GT3 saw the Renault needing suspension repairs. A further on-track clash in the fifth hour finally saw the Renault a withdrawal.
The intervention of a late race Safety Car robbed EuroInternational of an opportunity to lap the chasing Ferrari, the winning distance 222 laps in 6h01’27 “277 at an average of 150.536 km/h.
Incidentally the win for the Ligier means that the 6 Hours of Rome/ Vallelunga has now been won, at least once apiece by:
LMP1/LMP900 (Lister Storm Chevrolet in 2004)
LMP2 (Racing Box Lola Judd in 2009)
LMP3 (Eurointernational Ligier Nissan 2016)
CN (Avelon Formula Wolf GB08 in 2015)
GT1 (Ferrari F40s, McLaren F1 and Maserati MC12)
GT2/GTE (5 times by Ferrari 430 and 458 between 2008 and 2014)
GT3 (Estamotorsport Ferrari 458 GT3 in 2012)
We believe this is a unique record for the results of a well established endurance race.
