Nicolas Taylor withstands hard pressure from Nicola Baldan to victory
Reigning TCR Italy champion Nicolas Taylor survived tough pressure from Nicola Baldan throughout the first race of the weekend at Vallelunga to claim victory.
Disaster struck pole sitter Jacopo Cimenes who stalled on the grid and later came to a halt at the exit of Turn 2 with a broken front suspension, bringing the safety car out.
Michele Imberti, who started fourth, made contact with fellow Hyundai Alex Ley driver as the lights went out, sending Imberti into a spin and out of the race while Ley was able to continue in third place.
The best start of all was made by Taylor who was able to get past fellow Audi driver Baldan heading into Turn 2.
The safety car headed back in after a couple of laps without any major changes at the restart.
Polish Honda driver Michal Bartoszuk, who started eighth, pitted with a technical issue with 14 minutes left of the race.
BRC Racing Team driver Michele Imberti suffered a front-left puncture with six minutes left of the race and pitted from fourth place, losing a lap on the leaders.
Aikoa Racing driver Baldan remained right on the rear bumper of Taylor throughout the race and only made two serious attempts to overtake.
The first came with three minutes left of the race and a second on the penultimate lap with minor contact between the two. But the attempts were unsuccessful and the Canadian driver won the race by 0.8 seconds over Baldan.
Ley was a distant third, nine seconds adrift, with Pietro Alessi in fourth and Matteo Poloni in fifth while Denis Babuin rounded off the top six.
