Photo: Superstars

Gianni Morbidelli gets closer to title with wet win at Imola

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Gianni Morbidelli took a commanding win in the second race at Imola. The Audi Sport Italia driver came home ahead of Mercedes title rival Vitantonio Liuzzi and Francesco Sini’s Chevrolet Camaro. Thomas Biagi finished in seventh and lost second place in the championship to Liuzzi.

At the start, once again held under Safety Car – which lasted for one lap – Sini took the lead ahead of Max Mugelli’s BMW, Andrea Bacci and Giovanni Berton. A little further back Liuzzi tried his move on Morbidelli, making the most of the power of the C63 AMG, but went wide in the first part of the Tamburello chicane and Morbidelli got back in front of the Mercedes driver.

Mugelli spun off on the second lap at Variante Alta, leaving second to Berton’s BMW, who had overtaken Bacci, and a charging Morbidelli. The Audi quickly made it past the BMW and started chasing Sini, who took advantage of the fights around him to build up a lead of over five seconds.

It took two laps for Morbidelli to close the gap and finally took the lead at Tosa, despite a fierce defense from the Chevrolet Camaro. Meanwhile Liuzzi had taken third from Berton and another intense fight resulted in Sini eventually losing his place.

Further back, the two other Audis were climbing up the field, with Davide Di Benedetto soon making up ground on Berton and passing him for fourth, much like his team-mate Giuseppe Cipriani did a little later. Biagi was a lonely seventh, and made a mistake at Variante Alta which looked to slow his pace down further.

The most entertaining fight came towards the end of the race, as Sini managed to brilliantly defend from the charging Audi of by Di Benedetto. The Chevrolet driver took a precious podium finish in third.

Morbidelli goes into the final Vallelunga weekend with a rather unexpected but very strong lead over Biagi, who is 33 points behind the leader. Liuzzi lies in third, a further 10 points behind his team-mate. The Vallelunga season finale is scheduled for October, 13th, in two weeks.