22.07.2019 – A second overall and a third place in Pro-Am ended Imperiale Racing’s weekend at the International Circuit of Mugello, that has staged the penultimate round of the Italian GT Sprint 2019 Championship this past weekend.
The Italian team, that is undoubtedly one of the protagonists of this season, fielded the two official driver pairings on the Lamborghini Huracàn GT3 Evo: namely, Vito Postiglione (ITA) and Jeroen Mul (NL) on the #63 car in PRO, Pietro Perolini (ITA) and Ben Gersekowski (AUS) on the #19 car in Pro-Am.
Despite the very high temperatures that made the definition of the setup on the challenging circuit in Mugello even trickier, Imperiale Racing’s drivers demonstrated good confidence since free practice. The positive feelings were confirmed in qualifying and Mul ended Q1 with the second-fastest time in 1’45.851s, while a great Gersekowski posted the fourth time in 1’47.476s, that was the second quickest time of Pro-Am. In Q2, Postiglione claimed another P2 in 1’46.143s, while Perolini qualified the #19 car in P11 in 1’48.360s, that was the fifth of Pro-Am.
Mul ran a particularly hard-fought first stint in race one among the front-runners and handed the #63 car over to Postiglione in P3. The handicap time they had to serve made the Italian rejoin fifth but he managed to get one position back through a great overtaking move on the #52 Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Hudspeth and crossed the finish line in fourth place.
The #19 car had a challenging race as Gersekowski and Perolini drove with focus claiming the final tenth place, that was the fifth of Pro-Am.
A great start by Postiglione on the #63 car in race two allowed him not to lose contact with the leaders until the pitstop. The safety car deployed when the pit window was open reshuffled the classification and Mul rejoined the race in P3. The Dutch driver soon moved a successful attack to the #25 Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Vezzoni and closed the race on the second step of the podium.
The #19 car put in a spectacular comeback race two. Perolini interpreted very well the 5.245 meters of the circuit in Mugello in the first stint targeting to close in on the front-runners. After the pit stop, his co-equiper Gersekowski kept the momentum and crossed the finish line in P6 overall, third of Pro-Am, securing the second podium of the season in the Sprint series.
Luca Del Grosso (Imperiale Racing, Team Manager):
“We knew this would have been a tough weekend not only for the time handicap we had to serve with the #63 car in race-1, but also for the very high temperatures in Mugello that made the two races even more challenging. Despite this, the whole team and drivers did a great job. We got the most of all the chances we had and this allowed us to take two podiums. We are leading the drivers’ classification with Vito and Jeroen and we will carefully prepare the closer of Monza, ready to play our cards against our rivals”.
The Italian GT Sprint Championship will now take a break and will resume with the closing round in Monza next October 18th-20th.
