Lorenzo Ferrari's journey in the Italian Gran Turismo sprint championship got off to a fantastic start: the driver from Piacenza took a fantastic overall victory in the second race of the season's opening weekend at the Vallelunga racetrack, also collecting an excellent second place in his category in the first heat of the weekend. Lorenzo showed up at the starting line of the Italian sprint series dedicated to GT cars with AF Corse in the GT3 Pro-Am category, sharing the cockpit of the prestigious Ferrari 296 GT3 #51 with former Formula 2 driver Mahaveer Raghunathan.
"I couldn't have asked for a better start to the season," Lorenzo commented. "We knew we had a good pace, but taking second place in the category and an overall victory is a fantastic result for us. Achieving success aboard a Ferrari, together with a team like AF Corse, is truly incredible. I would like to thank both the team and my teammate Mahaveer for the work done over the weekend, and we will give our all to confirm these results from the next appointment at Mugello".
The next appointment of the Italian Gran Turismo sprint championship will be held in Tuscany from 11 to 13 July.
The weekend in Vallelunga
The Vallelunga weekend saw Ferrari begin to get to grips with the car in the first free practice session, where he secured a convincing fourth place, before posting the fastest time in the second practice session. The first qualifying session of the season, split into two sessions, saw Lorenzo take a superb overall pole position in Q2, after Raghunathan had secured fourth place in the class in the first session.
Race-1 saw the Indian start from ninth overall; during the first half of the race, Raghunathan was able to stay close to the leading group, eventually handing the car over to Ferrari in fifth place in the Pro-Am class. Once the time available for the mandatory pit stop ran out, Lorenzo found himself in fourth place in the class, 15 seconds behind the class leader. In the final quarter of an hour of the race, the Emilian proved to be one of the fastest drivers on the start line of the championship, making up significant ground and moving up to second place in the GT Pro-Am class thanks to a beautiful overtaking move with less than 2 minutes left on the clock. AF Corse thus finished second in the category, as well as seventh overall.
For the final race of the weekend, Lorenzo started from pole position thanks to a fantastic result achieved during the second qualifying session. A less than perfect start saw the Piacenza native slip to second place, but he still held on to the lead in the category. Ferrari then remained glued to the race leader until the pit stop, where he handed the car over to his teammate with 20 minutes to go. The #51 crew then found themselves in the lead of the race once the mandatory pit stops were completed, and Raghunathan was able to hold his nerve and cross the finish line ahead of everyone else, thus scoring a fantastic overall victory.
