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EU3000: GP Racing Spa race report
GP Racing and Del Monte Fortify Their Leadership in Spa. Since the beginning of the Superfund Euro 3000 series, GP Racing has conquered the podium on a regular basis thanks to the leader of the championship Fabrizio Del Monte. After 3 victories ...
Edited: Dec 13, 2009, 12:45 AM
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GP Racing and Del Monte Fortify Their Leadership in Spa.
Since the beginning of the Superfund Euro 3000 series, GP Racing has conquered the podium on a regular basis thanks to the leader of the championship Fabrizio Del Monte. After 3 victories and a third place win, Del Monte proved that he was in great shape again by getting on the podium in Spa and by fortifying his lead in the classification. Maxime Hodencq and Tor Graves did well too: they finished in eighth and 10th place respectively. It was very satisfying for the English Graves who finally reached the finish line after 4 retirements three of which were caused by other drivers' accidents.
Fabrizio Del Monte is in the lead with 38 points: 11 points ahead of the runner up Pastorelli. Saturday was an ok day for the Roman driver who got the 4th place on the grid. It's a pity that he wasn't able to take advantage of the first set of tyres: had he been able to do that he would probably have gotten the pole position. During his fastest lap, he was forced to brake to avoid a slower car and used up too much of his tyres. Instead during the race, Del Monte proved to be one of the fastest drivers of the superfund championship. At the start, he maintained his 4th place but after a few laps of adjustment, Fabrizio started to plot a way to get the 3rd place that was occupied by Siedler. The Austrian driver wasn't willing to give up his position but after Fabrizio's very clever move during the ninth lap, the roman driver conquered the position and proved his superiority. In the meantime, unfortunately Fabrizio had summed up too many seconds and fell behind the others in the lead. Even if he had run many fast laps, he was forced to "accept" the third place finish.
Maxime Hodencq's race was influenced by the qualifying session. Regrettably, Maxime had spun 180 and ended up on the gravel while trying to set his fastest time. The qualifying session ended there for him and thus was last on the grid. Hodencq had to climb his way up during the race. Lap after lap Maxime gained position after position and finished in 8th place. There was just one sour note: while trying to overtake Ippoliti, Maxime spun around 180 again and lost about 10 seconds. Without this inconvenience, the driver could have cut the finish line in 6th place.
Tor Graves reached the finish line as well for the first time ever. After being involved in accidents that were caused by others, the English driver's goal was to finish his first race in the Superfund Euro 3000 series. After a very good start, Tor maintained a constant and fast pace throughout the race. Tor spun 180 as well but luckily this didn't influence the driver's race. Tor very deservingly finished in the top ten.
Tancredi Pagiaro, Team Manager
"I'm very happy with how things went this weekend. All the cars reached the finish line and Fabrizio's podium has now become a very pleasant tradition by getting on 5 times out of five races. If someone had told me this at the beginning, I wouldn't have believed them. Maxime also did well and Tor finally finished his first race. He really deserved this seeing that he has worked so hard since the beginning. We are half way through the championship and we have 5 more races left to go. Del Monte is firmly in the lead of the classification thanks to him and to the team that is having a fantastic season. Now the hard part begins but we are ready to give our 100%!"
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