Agustín Canapino repeats victory in Santa Fe

Agustín Canapino clinched another win in the streets of Santa Fe, after winning last night’s race for Chevrolet. After Facundo Ardusso’s retirement, Renault Sport pair Emiliano Spataro and Leonel Pernía completed the podium.

At the start, Canapino defended properly the lead from Ardusso, whilst Mariano Werner (Team Peugeot Total Argentina) challenged Spataro for third place, but instead lost fourth to Pernía. Christian Ledesma ended his race early after crashing in the hairpin (following a little contact with Rafael Morgenstern’s Toyota Corolla), without serious damage in his Renault Fluence GT, despite it forced the Safety Car out.

At the restart, Canapino held the Renault trio again. But the hairpin saw a multiple collision again: Germán Sirvent, Matías Milla (Toyota Team Argentina) and Bruno Etman (M&M Group).

Ardusso did not take long to attack Canapino, trying a “Scissors” move (entered the hairpin way wide trying to accelerate early and win the inside line) on the Chevrolet, but failed in his first attempt.

Facundo Chapur (Team Peugeot Total Argentina) battled really hard with Norberto Fontana, who almost sent him into the wall, but the young Peugeot driver overtook the ex F1 and his Chevrolet Cruze.

The hairpin gave more action on seventh lap: Rossi braked long and overtook Renault Sport’s Ignacio Julián, almost sideways. After a tight battle with Morgenstern and Damián Fineschi’s Peugeot 408, Carlos Javier Merlo crashed his factory Fiat Linea into the wall, going on with severe damage on his right side.

Rossi and Fineschi gave a very interesting battle to get into the Top 10 they did so when they overtook Julián. They repeated the move at the hairpin for eigth place over Fontana, who damaged his Chevrolet Cruze when trying to hold onto his position.

Meanwhile, Canapino cleared a whole second of gap over Ardusso, Spataro and Pernía, as Werner remained in fifth ahead of his team-mate Chapur. Behind them, Fineschi turned wide and was overtaken by Rossi’s Toyota with eight lap remaining.

At that point, the top 10 was: Canapino, Ardusso, Spataro, Pernía, Werner, Chapur, Rossi, Fineschi, Julián and Guerrieri.

The biggest shock came on lap 20, with four to go: Ardusso’s steering failed in his Renault, when he was approaching the chicane. Despite he missed turning, he could brake safely (narrowly evaded by Canapino). Safety Car was deployed again.

At the restart, Spataro tried hard to stay close to Canapino when they entered last lap, but he could do nothing: the Chevrolet ended a perfect weekend with a double win. Spataro and Pernía followed him on the podium.

Werner, Chapur and Fineschi finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, ahead of Rossi’s Toyota, and Lucas Benamo, best privateer driver with Escudería FE Peugeot 408. Julián and Yannantuoni rounded up the top 10.

With this victory (third in a row for him in the season), Canapino increased to 32 his advantage at the top of the standings: he now has 169 points, against Ardusso’s 137.

Also, Canapino gave Chevrolet their first victories in this circuit, and is the third driver to win both races in the weekend in Santa Fe: Leonel Pernía did it for Honda in 2009, and Néstor Girolami for Peugeot in 2014.

Agustín Canapino (Chevrolet YPF – 1st) to TouringCarTimes: “This race was harder than last night, it was split in three parts: at first, Ardusso attacked really hard, after that, my light contact on the wall when I was trying to keep the pace, and in the end, Spataro put some pressure in the restart, the two last laps were too challenging. I had to exit the chicane properly with cold tyres, it nearly costed me the win last night, and in his last chance, there were yellow flags”.

On the next round, in La Pampa, he will introduce the new version of the Cruze model, while his team-mates will keep the current one. About that, he commented: “I would take it home with me, the exiting model has given me a lot of good memories, but now I have the challenge to win the title with the newest one”.

About the remaining races, Canapino stated: “I have to keep that 32-point gap, but I have to stay fast on track, battling for poles and wins. There’s no other way”.

Emiliano Spataro (Renault Sport – 2nd) to TouringCarTimes.com: “I’m satisfied with this weekend, we collected many points overall, but the driver who we had to close down (Canapino) is the one that scored the most. Our car worked really well. I saw some smoke coming out from Ardusso’s front right, but since he had no contact with the wall, I guess he had steering issues. About Canapino, he was unbeatable on qualifying, but on both races, I had enough pace to chase him, particularly at the end. Today, he has a big advantage on the standings, to catch him we must win many races in a row as he did”.

About team-orders, Spataro stated: “The team told us not to clash on track, we all have chances to battle for the title, so unless I had a clear chance of overtaking Ardusso, I did well in keeping behind. He’s a rival, but at the same time he’s my team-mate”.

Leonel Pernía (Renault Sport – 3rd): “My mechanics worked overnight to put a new engine, they’re the true heroes in this sport, they are extremely hard workers. About the track, I think we should move back to last year’s chicane, it’s impossible to chase the car in front when it exits the turn. It was introduced because a car lost brakes (r. Spataro in 2014), so it made no sense to change it. I would revert it to the old layout”.