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    Ferrari wins Race-2 at Monza

    Giorgio Roda and Alessio Rovera won Race-2 of round three of the Italian GT Sprint Championship at Monza

    Monza 19 October 2020

    Giorgio Roda and Alessio Rovera won Race-2 of round three of the Italian GT Sprint Championship at Monza. They finished ahead of the Audi R8 LMS crewed by Mattia Drudi and Riccardo Agostini and the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 driven by Simon Mann and Matteo Cressoni, first in the GT3 PRO-AM. Matteo Greco and Riccardo Chiesa won in the GT Cup.

    GT3. It was a hard-fought race, full of twists and turns and with the entry of two Safety Cars. The last of these, in the closing stages, decided the final standings in a heart-stopping final lap. Giorgio Roda and Alessio Rovera, in the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of AF Corse, emerged from the Monza lottery with their maiden victory in the Sprint series, which keeps them in the title fight. In the first stint, marked by the first Safety Car following Galbiati's early exit, Rovera tailed poleman Loris Spinelli, handing over to his coéquipier in second position. In the second stint, Roda remained behind Lorenzo Ferrari, who had taken over from Spinelli, but on lap 21 the Lombard driver had to give way to a rampant Leonardo Pulcini. In the final stages, the second Safety Car shuffled the positions with Pulcini taking the lead ahead of Roda and Drudi in the tussle at the restart of the last lap which also saw Lorenzo Ferrari's exit. Pulcini crossed the finish line in first but was immediately relegated to fifth for the penalty picked up by his teammate Danny Kroes for a contact with Galbiati. Victory thus went to Roda and Rovera, after the former’s skilful performance at the restart on the last lap. After them came Drudi and Agostini who, despite yet another time handicap due to their excellent results in previous races, finished on the second step of the podium ahead of Yuki Nemoto and Tuomas Tujula. However, after the race, five seconds were docked from the VSR crew for Tujula's contact with the Ferrari during the torrid last lap, relegating them to seventh position.

    As a result, Mann and Cressoni mounted the third step of the podium, their best result of the season. They also won the PRO-AM, after a good race by the young US driver who did well to keep close to the leaders and a superb Cressoni who in the final stages took the points to maintain their lead in the PRO-AM standings. The AF Corse crew was followed by the other two Ferrari 488s with an interest in the class rankings, Mattia Michelotto and Sean Hudspeth, and Matteo Greco and Riccardo Chiesa, with the Singaporean Easy Race driver doing well to pass Di Amato on the last lap. In the GT3 PRO-AM, Mann and Cressoni top the standings on 86 points ahead of Di Amato and Vezzoni (74) and Michelotto and Hudspeth (65).

    GT CUP. Matteo Greco and Riccardo Chiesa were also unrivalled in Race-2, claiming their fifth win of the season at the wheel of the Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo of Easy Race. The winners were given a hand by Alessandro Berton's pit lane start due to a sensor problem in the Ferrari 488 Challenge SR&R. The first few laps of the second stint saw a fine duel between Luca Demarchi, who had taken over from Berton, and Greco who had replaced Chiesa. However,  Demarchi was forced to retire with six laps to go because of a problem with the front end.