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Ledesma wins difficult weekend at Rio Cuarto
The seventh round the 2003 T.C. 2000 Championship disputed at RÃo Cuarto, Córdoba will not be one more in the memories of Christian Ledesma. Lots of things lived this young driver only in a couple of days. Maybe too much. The most important is the ...
Published: Jul 30, 2003, 1:00 PM
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The seventh round the 2003 T.C. 2000 Championship disputed at Río Cuarto, Córdoba will not be one more in the memories of Christian Ledesma. Lots of things lived this young driver only in a couple of days. Maybe too much. The most important is the lost of his father, Omar Ledesma, 71 years, who died on saturday morning after a long cerebral illness. The other, the less important thing, is that he won.
Despite the feelings of Ledesma were with his family, the young driver decided to continue his activity and he qualified in a good fourth place on saturday. But that wasn`t important for him right now. When the qualify session finished, Ledesma flown to Mar del Plata in the plane of Marcos Di Palma along with Christian team mate and friend, Marcelo Bugliotti. ¨With Marcos I had problems before in Turismo Carretera, but I`ll never forget what he did today¨ recognised Christian, who all he wanted was to be in his city with his family.
Ledesma, Di Palma and Bugliotti returned on sunday despite the fog that complicated their fly and the chances to arrive on time. But they did and they were authorized to be part of the race.
¨To race is the best tribute to my dad¨, said Christian. And he did it in a fantastic way, as always.
The main race started with Gabriel Furlán (Mitsubishi Lancer) in first position followed by Ledesma (Chevrolet Astra). Quickly Christian took the leadership and he never left it until the chequered flag.
The dominium of Ledesma made the race boring and put the eyes in the dispute for the second position between Furlán, Martín Basso (Honda Civic), fastest on saturday but not on sunday, J.M. Silva (Honda Civic) and Lucas Armellini in a great job with the private Chevrolet Astra.
As I said the race was to much boring, in a circuit that doesn`t has places to pass another car the result was obvious: yawns around the people...
Ledesma took the victory after 51m50s887 of race followed by Furlán at 1s572 and Silva at 1s928 who took the third place after his team mate Basso received the order to ¨help¨ the 1999 champion. Basso wasn`t happy with the idea of give to other the chance of get his first podium in the category, even more after he was dispualified in Oberá where he arrived second a couple of weeks ago.
Finally Basso finished fifth. Armellini passed him in the last lap in an interesting maneuver. However Armellini completed a fanastic result with the private Astra. The podium is right there for him.
The 2002 champion, Norberto Fontana, and leader in the standings had a difficult weekend at Río Cuarto. The ballast was one more time his main enemy. To this we must add a friction with Gabriel Ponce de León in the qualify short race that made him start 15th. the final race. Fontana arrived seventh and the engine of his Toyota Corolla stopped a few meteres after the chequered flag. Is that not the champion luck, what is?
It was a bad weekend for the factory Ford team. Walter Hernández put his Ford Focus only 10th. while Ponce de León finished 17th. a lap behind the leader.
Guillermo Ortelli, winner at Oberá, return to what he does very well. Again he suffered mechanics problems with his Honda Civic. One more time he retired.
Omar Martínez also couldn`t take a good resut from Río Cuarto. The 2002 sub-champion arrived 11th. with the Corolla. ¨One more time the same¨, he said after the race.
After seven races the championshiop is fanasttic with six drivers in only 22 points. Fontana continue as leader with 72. Hernández is second with 60, Ponce de León has 55, Silva 53, Furlán 52 and Ledesma 50. Lots of candidates to be the 2003 T.C. 2000 champion.
Next round will be at the province of Salta on August 10th.
This was the second victory for Ledesma after only six races in the category. Now Ledesma will spend some time with his family at Mar del Plata. But not much because next sunday he`ll be defending his leadership of the Turismo Carretera championship. In the name of the father.
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