A rain-affected Porsche Carrera Cup Italia race at Imola brought an end to any hopes of a first GT win for Lirim Zendeli, who finished in seventh place after putting his Ombra Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup machine on pole position in yesterday’s qualifying session.
The MIM-contracted German driver had been on good form all weekend with a dry race set-up, but when it started to rain as the cars lined up on the grid, almost all the drivers opted for wet tyres for the 30-minute race.
Lirim powered away into the lead but on lap 2 he had to give way to Marvin Klein (Target Competition) and his fellow Rookie challenger Francesco Braschi (Dinamic Motorsport) on the following lap, as his dry-weather set-up was creating a few problems on an increasingly wet track surface.
Two more drops to P6 and P7 followed as Alberto Cerqui (BeDriver) and Simone Iaquinta (Ghinzani Motorsport) went through when Lirim put two wheels into the gravel at Rivazza.
Two exits for the safety-car for more incidents in the gravel bunched the field up again, and when fifth-placed Sam Jongejan (Enrico Fulgenzi Racing) spun in front of Lirim with six minutes remaining, the safety car came out for the final time.
There was chaos in the final minute and a half as Lirim lost control of his Porsche once again at Acque Minerali and Klein took the chequered flag under a full course yellow, ahead of Braschi and the Ombra Racing duo of Keagan Masters and Oliver Hall, while Lirim could only finish seventh.
“To get these kinds of results after a double pole and one penalty, and then this ending is a bit depressing,” said Lirim. “We were in trouble with the feeling with the car basically from the beginning. I had a contact yesterday; I don’t know exactly what it was but the team checked the car, everything looked fine, but it didn’t help me in the race after yesterday. I just couldn’t steer; it was so inconsistent. Sometimes it would turn and sometimes not and it was making me do a lot of mistakes, which weren’t mistakes, it was the car reacting to what I was doing. I was just trying to manage everything, and in the end, I think we lost one point in total for the Rookie Championship.”
“Okay, this weekend we showed a double pole, not just one pole, which means it wasn’t one lucky lap. It was a mega-qualifying and I needed that after such a long time. This was probably the most important thing this weekend, more important than gaining a point or losing a point, just for myself. Starting from the front and showing everyone what I can do. It’s my first year in GT racing, and I haven’t driven a lot. I’m doing two championships but it’s not like I’ve been driving 20 test days or whatever, it just felt good this weekend and I think it’s going to give me a good push for Vallelunga and Monza.”
Despite losing out to Braschi, Lirim remains fourth overall in the standings and continues to hold a commanding lead in the Rookies’ cup. He and his Ombra Racing team now head to the Vallelunga circuit on the outskirts of Rome for the fifth double-header Porsche Carrera Cup Italia round in two weeks’ time.
