Tag: Faenza

Report: Race 1 Imola

Alessandro Bracalente reduces the gap to championship leader Ghiotto by winning his 4th race of the year.

Alessandro Bracalente (ITA, Speed Center) drove unchallenged to his fourth victory of the season in the FORMULA class. The BOSS GP rookie thus reduced the gap to Marco Ghiotto (ITA, Scuderia Palladio) in the points standings from 15 to only 12 points. Now it is clear that the championship will be decided in the last race on Sunday. Ghiotto followed Bracalente throughout the race like a shadow. Only at the end of the race he lost the connection to Bracalente and the gap grow to an high of four seconds at the finish line.

Luca Martucci (ITA, MM International) showed an incredible pace at the finish. At the beginning of the race he dropped back to 9th place, but on the last lap he made it onto the podium. For Martucci it is his fifth visit on the podium in 2019. In a courageous last lap manoeuvre, he overtook Salvatore de Plano (ITA, Top Speed), who seems to have bad luck on his racing boots. For de Plano it was nevertheless the second-best result of the season and the highest finish since the Hockenheim season opener.

Andreas Fiedler (DEU, Fiedler Racing) was also involved in the fight for the podium at the opening stage of the race. In the end he finished fifth. He scored five championship points more than Philippe Haezebrouck (FRA, Speed Center), who finished seventh. Tomorrow Haezebrouck and Fiedler will fight for third place in the FORMULA ranking.

Marc Faggionato (MCO, Zig-Zag) could not set any time in qualifying because his car had not been repaired in time. That didn’t stop him from moving up to 6th place from last position on the grid. For several laps he battled with Haezebrouck for position.

Walter Steding (DEU, Inter Europol) was surprisingly in the top 6 at the beginning of the race, ahead of Martucci and Haezebrouck. With rank 8, he finished in good midfield this time.

Nicolas Matile (MCO, Zig-Zag) finished 9th with the only Auto GP Lola in the field. Peter Göllner won the internal team duel between him and Christian Eicke (both SUI, Speed Center).

Gianluca Ripoli (ITA, MM International) and Ulf Ehninger (DEU, ESBA Racing) had to retire early in the race. Because Ripoli stopped at the warm-up lap, he had to start at the back of the grid at the Indy start. He tried to improve his position in the first lap and collided with Ehninger’s Benetton in the Tosa hairpin.

The overall victory was again secured by Ingo Gerstl (AUT, Top Speed). Not surprisingly, the already crowned OPEN champion in his Toro Rosso dominated the eleventh race of the season.

The 12th and last race of the BOSS GP anniversary season will take place tomorrow Sunday at 2:10 p.m., before that at 10:30 a.m. is BOSS GP’s warm-up session.

Report: Qualifying Monza

Ingo Gerstl (Toro Rosso STR1) starts the races in Monza ahead of Rinus van Kalmthout (GP2 Dallara Judd) and Phil Stratford (Benetton B197). Best Italian: Marco Ghiotto (GP2 Dallara) in 4th place.

With 1:26.6 min the Austrian Ingo Gerstl (Top Speed) was over three seconds faster than the quickest time in qualifying 2016. The average speed in the fastest lap was over 240 kilometers per hour. The measured top speed was over 340 kph at the end of the start-finish straight. Gerstl in his Toro Rosso STR1 is by far the favourite for the race victory in the afternoon race (start: 4:40 pm).

Phil Stratford (Penn Elcom Racing), who started in qualifying session 1, only set one lap, and this at the end of the session, which was only eight minutes long. Rinus van Kalmthout, who did not start until Q2, snatched the American just before the end of the session from the front row. The 17-year-old Dutchman in the GP2-Dallara with Judd engine was faster than Stratford, especially in the first sector. The time gap of only two tenths of a second means that Mansell Motorsport’s team-mates can expect a hot race.


f.l. Ingo Gerstl, Marco Ghiotto

With an outside temperature of almost 30 degrees centigrade already in the morning hours, the Italian Marco Ghiotto felt very comfortable. In front of many friends and guests he qualified as the best FORMULA pilot. With rank 4 he is also one place ahead of Wolfgang Jaksch (F Xtreme Racing). The Super Aguri of the German was repaired yesterday after the practice accident (damage to the front suspension and front wing). With 1:36.3 min he set his personal best time this weekend.

Florian Schnitzenbaumer (Top Speed) provided the only Full Course Yellow. The German stopped beside the track after a driving mistake. He was fourth fastest FORMULA driver behind Ghiotto, Armando Mangini and David Moretti. He was closely followed by Andreas Fiedler (Fiedler Racing), who lost only three tenths to the points leader in his green Dallara. Walter Steding did well at his fourth appearance in Monza. He finished 10th, ahead of BOSS GP returner Wolfgang Jordan, Karl-Heinz Becker and Veronica Cicha. Christian Eicke (Speed Center) complained about the interruptions in practice yesterday, in qualifying he could complete at least 11 (and thus most) laps. With 1:42.7 min he is close to the midfield. The Frenchman “Piter” (Ray-Ban), who also had his best time of the weekend in qualifying, showed a significant improvement.

 
f.l. Veronica Cicha, David Moretti

Hans Laub‘s Forti stayed in the pits today, the German from Speed Center assists Christian Eicke as a mechanic for the rest of the weekend. We will see the popular Formula 1 racing car again in Hockenheim. Thomas Jakoubek is also thinking about Hockenheim. The Top Speed driver had injured his ribs during an race kart event just before the weekend and is resting for the highlight of the season.

Photos: Michael Kavena/BOSS GP