Canapino and Ortelli take historic victory at Buenos Aires 200 km
Agustín Canapino and Guillermo Ortelli claimed a historic first victory for Chevrolet since 2006 in the 2016 running of the Buenos Aires 200 km.
Rain came into play early in the race, while only falling lightly to begin with, it began to pour down by lap 22 .
This downpour saw Matias Rossi, who ultimately finished second for Toyota Team Argentina with co-driver Gabriel Ponce de Leon, as well as the Toyota of Rafael Morgenstern and the Peugeot of Facundo Chapur spinning out from second, third and fourth positions respectively while trying to avoid the privateer entry of Federico Braga, who had lost control in the conditions.
This saw the safety car being deployed, which forced the race to finish under the 80-minute limit instead of 200 kilometres.
The safety car was out for seven laps with the majority of the field completing their pit stops with their mandatory driver changes during this time.
The closing stages of the race saw Rossi reclaim second position from Renault driver Mauro Giallombardo, and was gaining on race leader Canapino. Though there were not enough laps for Rossi, who crossed the line 1.5 seconds behind Canapino, while Giallombardo claimed third with Christian Ledesma.
The Chevrolet duo of Matias Munoz Marchesi and Augusto Scalbi claimed fourth position, while Facundo Ardusso and Franco Vivian claimed fifth for Renault following a post-race penalty for the Escuderia FE Peugeot pair of Tom Coronel and Luciano Farroni, which dropped them to seventh behind the Fiat duo of Fabricio Pezzini and Luciano Ventricelli.
Canapino now takes over the lead of the drivers’ championship on 128 points while Ardusso drops to second, eight points further adrift. The Super TC 2000 Championship continues on September 3-4th at Santa Fe.
