Vitantonio Liuzzi masters wet Imola as Thomas Biagi retires

Vitantonio Liuzzi gave a masterclass of driving today, winning the opening race of the day in Imola on a rain-flooded track. Gianni Morbidelli took second ahead of Luigi Ferrara who struggled with a mechanical problem. Thomas Biagi lost a last-lap fight with Morbidelli and finished his race in the gravel trap at Piratella.

The race started under Safety Car, basically neutralizing the first ten racing minutes. At the start Ferrara held the lead, but it only took one lap before Liuzzi took advantage of a mistake at Variante Alta by his fellow Mercedes driver and jumped into the lead, never leaving it until the end of the race.

Meanwhile, Morbidelli took advantage of the four-wheel driven Audi and managed to get up to fourth quickly, as the leading all-Mercedes trio of Liuzzi, Ferrara and Biagi, in that order, were being chased by the Audi driver.

A lot more was to come as in the closing stages of the race, amid several mistakes due to the difficulty of the wet track, Ferrara started to evidently lose power in the dying minutes of the race. On the last lap Biagi and Morbidelli both got through him and started a fierce fight, the two going side by side from the exit of Tamburello up to Piratella.

The move is still unclear, but it looks like Biagi just overdrove in the right bend before Piratella and went off track. It is a fact, however, that his Mercedes C63 AMG got stuck in the gravel and cost the Italian lots of important points. Liuzzi went on to take the win ahead of Morbidelli and Ferrara, who stopped his car just after the finish line due to the mechanical problem which had already hampered his chances of taking second, with his C63 AMG Coupè covered in smoke.

Morbidelli leads the championship by sixteen points over Biagi, with three races remaining.