Neubauer and Brown in pole for Race-2 of the Trofeo Pirelli
Valencia 31 marzo 2019
On a track made very difficult by overnight rain at the Ricardo Tormo track, which intensified further this morning, Thomas Neubauer won a fine pole position, his first in the Ferrari Challenge.
Trofeo Pirelli. Neubauer marked 1: 45.963 on the stopwatch, a very respectable time which nobody else was able to match. Out on a track renowned for its technical difficulties, the driver from the Charles Pozzi - Courage team drove impeccably. There was no shortage of thrills to the rear either, with very contained gaps between the pursuers with five drivers bunched into a one second gap.
The session, which concluded 1'37" ahead of time after the red flag due to Maximilian Mayer coming off the track, placed a very competitive Bjorn Grossmann once more on the first row at 1" 1 from the poleman, more determined than ever to make up for the narrowly missed podium yesterday.
Louis Prette held his ground well on a treacherous circuit, finishing in third place ahead of Jack Brown, the first of the Trofeo Pirelli AM drivers. The Englishman distanced himself more than a second ahead of the other drivers in his category and managed to finish ahead of Niccolò Schirò, provisional leader in the championship standings. The Rossocorsa driver managed to get the better of Fabienne Wolhwend by a hair’s breadth. Unexpected difficulties for Sam Smeeth, ninth, yesterday in pole position after the application of grid handicaps.
Trofeo Pirelli AM. Behind Jack Brown, protagonist of two impeccable qualification rounds with the best time in the category of 1: 49.836, was Martin Nelson, fourth in Race-1. The Scuderia Autoropa driver finished ahead of Danish driver Christian Overgaard and Emanuele Maria Tabacchi, looking for more points to consolidate his leadership in the overall standings. Another fine qualifying round for rookie Marian Sufliarsky who outdistanced John Dhillon by almost five tenths of a second.
Alessandro Vezzoni, one of the protagonists of Race-1 and the winner Jan Danis closed the session respectively in seventh and eighth place for a starting grid that will still be shaken up by the grid handicaps. Given the many variables at play, the race remains wide open, with any result possible on the Spanish circuit, not least due to possible further increases in the intensity of the rain.
