Nick Moss and Joe Osborne took their third success of the season in their Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S in a very entertaining Race 2 at Monza, in dry weather after the heavy rain of yesterday.
The British pair are now only 4 points away from the Oregon Team Lamborghini of Benja Hites-Leonardo Pulcini, who finished second to the Mclaren duo.
The Oregan Team Lamborghini of Kevin Gilardoni-Glenn Van Berlo had to retire because of a technical issue, not scoring points for the first time this season and losing the points lead, but not their chances as they lie third in the standings 10 points from the top.
Third and again on the podium were Steve Jens-Sébastien Baud (Mercedes GetSpeed) while Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler (Mercedes SPS) took their maiden Pro-Am win ahead of
Fumanelli-Cuhadaroglu (Ferrari Kessel Racing), who now take the lead in the Pro-Am rankings by one point.
With the retirement of Basz-Jedlinski (Audi Olimp Racing). Alex Hrachowina and Martin Konrad (Mercedes Team Landgraf) secured the Am title with a win, beating Giuseppe Cipriani (Lambo Barone Rampante) and Osieka-Nana (Mercedes GetSpeed).
Joe Osborne took a perfect start from row 1, passing poleman Fumanelli but then cutting the first chicane, with De Folco in third and Bachler, perfectly started from row 3, in fourth. Following were Valente, Van Berlo and Hites.
On lap 3, Bachler tried to pass Di Folco under braking of the first chicane and touched him, sending the Lambo into a spin.
Di Folco rejoined in eighth. A similar incident would happen between Ziemian and Loukas on lap 8, and Bachler and Zieiman would receive a time penalty of 5 and 10 seconds, respectively.
In the meantime, Osborne had to give back P1 to Fumanelli following a stewards’ decision following the advantage acquired at the start by crossing the chicane.
On lap 10, there was a battle between Osborne and Bachler for second, with the two cars side by side from Parabolica to Lesmo, where the Porsche gets the advantage. Van Berlo is now fourth, ahead of Hites, Valente, Di Folco, Stanley and Jens.
On lap 11, there was a great fight between the first three as they caught the lapped Honda after Ascari and went side by side up to the first chicane.
Bachler took the lead in front of Osborne and Fumanelli. All the fighting allowed the two Oregon Lamborghinis to reduce their gap to 4 seconds, while the pit stop window opened on lap 14, but there was drama for van Berlo as he crawled into the pits to retire with a problem in the rear right.
After all stops (lap 20), Moss led by 8 seconds on Pulcini and 12 on Cuhadaroglu. Roe (who got an 8-second penalty for not serving the entire handicap) was fourth, ahead of Cazzaniga, who had passed Scholze, then Baud, De Meeus, Jefferies and Basz, while Osieka led in Am.
