Italia: Series Vallelunga race two report

Bortolotti finishes in the lead

Gabriele Lucidi, Team Manager:

'2008 has been a year full of innovation for Italian Formula 3 due to the employment of brand new single seaters and engines. We worked hard on the development at the beginning of the season, exploiting the technical know-how that allowed us to get the title with Nocera last year. Bortolotti has always worked with great professionalism, also playing a crucial role outside racing weekends. During races he has always been fast and in practice he never committed any mistakes throughout the whole season. The season's finale has been red hot. We left the others argue while we concentrated ourselves on race preparation: this helped to make the difference at Vallelunga. The result obtained by Castellacci and Nava, respectively fourth and fifth in the final classification, concludes with a further positive note our season. From tomorrow on we will work on the 2009.'

Piercarlo Ghinzani (Team Ghinzani, Team Owner):

'The championship finished in an unfavourable way for us unfortunately. What a pity, during the season three unfortunate episodes not depending on us took away some precious points that perhaps could have allowed Piscopo to obtain the title. '

Roberto Venieri (BVM Target, Team Manager):

'We are satisfied for achieving the objective we set at the beginning of the season, that is, the third final place of Cicatelli. Our impressions after the first season in the renewed Italian Formula 3 are certainly positive: the championship is in good health and I believe that it will grow further next year. An added value has been offered by FPT Racing technicians, that thanks to their availability always gave an adequate support to teams.'

Moreno Leonardi (Europa Corse, Team Manager):

'Vallelunga confirms itself as the bugbear for Europa Corse. This circuit never brought good luck to our colours and the tradition was confirmed this year too. We would have wanted to finish the season with a victory but this was not possible. The second place of Dillman in race one confirms our progresses anyway and this makes me hopeful for 2009.'

Angelo Corbetta (Team Minardi by Corbetta Competizioni, Team Principal):

'A championship is concluded whereby we have more than once been subjected to sportive penalties. We harvested less than what we expected at the beginning of the year, but one has to accept unlucky seasons; we will soon start working for the next season, with the objective to get back soon to fight for high places of the classification.'

The 2008 champion Mirko Bortolotti put his own seal also on the second race of Vallelunga, dominating therefore from start to finish the last race of the season.

The driver of team Lucidi Motors proceeded his team-mate Francesco Castellacci, that obtained in this way the fourth place in the classification right behind the best 2008 rookie, Salvatore Cicatelli (BVM-Target) seventh today.

Daniel Mancinelli (BVM-Target) completed the podium, followed by Edoardo Piscopo (Team Ghinzani) author of a good recovery started from the seventh place.

Technical problems characterized Europa Corse's race with Dillmann and Prandi forced to the retirement, while Marco Zipoli thanks to the sixth place obtained the last points of the season for team Minardi by Corbetta.

-credit: f3 italia