Raphael Lessard continued to slowly eat away Thomas Toffel’s standings lead after he claimed the victory in OPEN Semi-Finals 1 – The Canadian survived the Swiss’ relentless challenge and numerous caution periods
- Raphael Lessard scored his fourth OPEN victory after a dramatic race in Italy
- Toffel maintained his overall lead, but Lessard gets closer and closer with his win streak
- Claudio Cappelli took home a popular podium in front of his fans
The OPEN title battle is heating up even more after the results of a dramatic OPEN Semi-Finals 1 that were full of twists and turns. Raphael Lessard maximized the pole position that he inherited from Thomas Toffel’s qualifying penalty with a calculated drive at the lead that he never surrendered. Lessard remained undisturbed and scored his third consecutive OPEN win despite numerous cautions and Toffel pressuring the Canadian for the whole race. The result slashed his overall deficit to Toffel down to 22 points and with three Playoffs races still to go, the door for Lessard to win the OPEN title is still wide open.
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“A win is a win for sure,” said the driver of the #11 Alumitec Racing Ford after his fourth career victory in the OPEN division. “I would like to finish it on the green, but I don’t think Toffel could have passed me. He was super fast at the exit going up the hill. No matter where I put the car back wide open and the best exit I could get, he still catched up to me. We have to get back to work and try to find a little bit more traction, but I’m really happy. Can’t thank the Alumitec Racing guys, they gave me an awesome car again and we’ll go to work for tomorrow!”
Celebrating alongside Lessard and Toffel on the podium is the home crowd’s favorite bearded driver: Claudio Cappelli. The CAAL Racing driver charged his way through the pack in the early laps and was rewarded with not only his first overall podium since Spain, but also his fifth consecutive win in the Legend Trophy. Vladimiros Tziortzis and Martin Doubek collected important points with their top-5 finishes. Right behind them is Sandro Tavartkiladze, who moved up to the overall lead of the Master Trophy after scoring another victory in the special classification.
Gil Linster and Thomas Dombrowski remained in the hunt for the championship, but their seventh and eighth place finishes cost them precious ground to Toffel and Lessard. Jens Beeusaert and Valentino Gambarotto completed both the overall top-10 and the podium in the Master Trophy. Melvin de Groot trailed his long-time Legend Trophy adversary Cappelli in 11th, while Giovanni Faraonio rounded out the special classification podium in 17th position. The Lady Trophy was won by Happinessa, who beat Mariam Davitidze after she capitalized on Beitske Visser’s late retirement and a good final restart by the driver of the #30 Rette Jones Racing by Hendriks Ford. Happiness also claimed the bonus points for most positions gained during the race.
Teams and drivers are given the time to not only rest, but also to rework their strategy in preparation for the second set of Playoffs Semi-Finals races that will come on Sunday. OPEN will start their Race 2 first at 11:10 CEST while the elite of V8GP closed the weekend with a nail biting thriller that will go live at 14:25 CEST. All races from the NASCAR GP Italy at Autodromo di Vallelunga are broadcast live from DAZN, YouTube and various TV partners around the world, details of which can be found from https://www.nascar.eu/watch/.
Update: Following post-race technical checks in Parc Ferme, Car #54 (Claudio Cappelli) was found in breach of technical regulations as the rear-left ride height measured ~2mm below the minimum limit. He was handed a two-place penalty in the final classification of OPEN Semi-Final 1. Vladimiros Tziortzis, driving the #6 Speedhouse Ford Mustang, has been promoted to the final overall podium position.
Featured image by NASCAR Euro Series / Nina Weinbrenner
