Sport

Rip-roaring V8 action at Kyalami

17 December 2009

Kyalami came alive to the throaty roar of V8 engines as it hosted the Superstars Series for the first time on the weekend. When the racing was done, it was a Chevrolet and an Audi that took the wins despite the attention of plenty of BMWs.

In race one, Fabrizio Armetta, a 37-year-old Roman, scored his and his Motorzone Race Car Team's first ever Supercars victory when he drove the perfect race in his Chevrolet Lumina CR8.

He started from pole position and crossed the finishing line at the front of the pack too without being seriously challenged throughout the 15-lap race. He was also credited with the fastest lap of the race, at 1 min 49.311 seconds, on lap two.

Youngest driver

Second place went to the youngest driver in the race, 28-year-old Christian Montanari of San Marino (Habitat Racing BMW M3), who came from sixth on the grid to take the runner-up position on the last lap in his first-ever Supercars race.

At the halfway mark (on lap eight), the former Italian karting champion was lying third behind Armetta and reigning Superstars champion Gianni Morbidelli (ROAL Motorsport BMW M3).

When the Jaguar XF of Francesco Draconi spun off the circuit and beached itself in the sand trap, he trailed Morbidelli by nine seconds.

The race resumed a lap later the field, but it had now bunched up and it gave Montanari the opportunity to challenge Morbidelli for second place.

Race for first

The two BMWs closed on the race leader's Chevrolet and the three-car train headed the 17-car field separated by less than a second until the penultimate lap.

With Montanari just three-tenths of a second behind him, Morbidelli, a former Formula One driver from Pesaro in Italy, slowed with a front suspension problem on his BMW and limped home in fifth place. That allowed Montanari to take second place, some 2.3 seconds behind the winner.

Third over the line was Mauro Cesari in a CAAL Racing BMW 550i, 9.5 seconds behind the winner. The 40-year-old from Spoleto in Italy had started from fourth on the grid, but dropped back to sixth on lap five. With one lap to go he was still sixth, behind Armetta, Morbidelli, Montanari, Ermanno Dionisio (Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4) and Pierluigi Martini (Zakspeed Team Chrysler 300C SRT-8).

Cesari managed to catch former F1 driver Martini on the final lap and crossed the finish line five-hundredths-of-a-second ahead of the Chrysler to take fourth place.

Promoted

He was then promoted to third and Martini to fourth after Dionisio was penalised 25 seconds for overtaking under a yellow flag. Dionisio eventually placed 13th.

Martini, 48, had started from third on the grid and held that position until shortly before half distance, despite the close attention of Montanari in the Habitat BMW M3. He had to give way to the BMW driver as his heavier Chrysler's tyres started to lose their grip and he then dropped behind Cesari on the penultimate lap when he went wide and on to the grass at the bottom of the fearsome downhill Mineshaft (turn 12).

Sixth was Kristian Ghedina in a Movisport Team BMW 550i. The 40-year-old former Italian Olympic downhill skier, who hails from the Alpine ski resort town of Cortina d'Ampezzo in northern Italy, started 10th after struggling with the set-up on his BMW.

Also in the points and making up the top 10 were Superstars debutant and former Italian F3 champion Luca Rangoni, seventh in an Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4; current Italian hill-climb champion David Baldi, eighth in a CAAL Racing BMW M5; Swiss former F1 driver Andrea Chiesa, ninth in a Swiss Team Maserati Quattroporte; and Superstars rookie Sandro Bettini, 10th in a CAAL Racing BMW M5.

Race two

In race two, Lucan Rangoni, making his first appearance in the Superstars Series, made the most of his front row start position on the reverse grid to take a commanding win in his Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4.

The 41-year-old from Bologna was unchallenged throughout the race as he made the most of his Audi's all-wheel drive to win by just over three seconds. He was also credited with the fastest lap of the race at 1 min 50.15 sec.

A seasonal Highveld thunderstorm was just minutes away from Kyalami as the 17 cars lined up for the rolling start, but it held off until the 12th lap of the expected 15-lap race, when a heavy downpour brought out the red flag to signal the end of the race.

The official result reflected the positions at the end of lap 11 and saw Rangoni followed across the finish line by race one winner Fabrizio Armetta in a Motorzone Race Car Chevrolet Lumina CR8.

Reverse grid

Armetta had started from eighth on the reverse grid after his earlier success (the top eight finishers from race one started in inverted order) and was already third by lap four, behind Rangoni and David Baldi (CAAL Racing BMW M5). Baldi, who had started from pole position, found himself swamped by the faster cars and eventually finished seventh.

Christian Montanari (Habitat Racing BMW M3) followed up his second place in race one with third place, just half-a-second behind Armetta and 4.5 seconds ahead of fourth-placed Gianni Morbidelli, the 2009 Superstars Series champion and a former F1 driver, in a ROAL Motorsport BMW M3.

Fifth place went to Max Pigoli (Max Pigoli Team Mercedes C63 AMG), who was followed by Ermanno Dionisio (Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4), the three CAAL Racing BMWs of David Baldi (M5), Roberto Papini (M5) and Mauro Cesari (550i), and Andrea Chiesa (Swiss Team Maserati Quattroporte).

An incident on lap two saw the retirement of two of the leading contenders when former F1 driver Pierluigi Martini (Zakspeed Team Chrysler 300C SRT-8) and former Olympic downhill skier Kristian Ghedina (Movisport BMW 550i) clashed in turn four while contesting third place. Martini had finished fourth in race one and Ghedina sixth.

Final Drivers Championship Standings