MIM-contracted driver Lirim Zendeli (Ombra Racing – Centro Porsche Bergamo) heads back to Monza’s Temple of Speed for the second time this season for the finale of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup Italia with only one aim in mind – to win the Rookie Cup in his first-ever season in GT racing.

The Rookie title was established this year by Porsche Italia and is reserved for those drivers who are tackling their first season in the Carrera Cup without any previous experience at the wheel of the 911 GT3 Cup cars.

With only two races remaining, the 25-year-old German lies fourth overall in the championship, 33 points behind his teammate Keagan Masters, but more importantly he just needs a handful of points to win the Rookie title as his advantage over Francesco Braschi (Dinamic Motorsport) was extended to 34 points following Lirim’s two podium finishes in the last round at Vallelunga.

The ‘discards’ factor, with each driver’s worst result of the season not considered in the final standings, cannot be ruled out either, so it will be all to play for around the 5.793 km high-speed track, which Lirim tackled for the first time in a GT3 machine earlier this year in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup encounter.

While teammate Keagan Masters battles it out for the title with Larry Ten Voorde (Enrico Fulgenzi Racing) and Marvin Klein (Target Competition), Lirim will just have to focus on bringing his Porsche to the finish, a task not made easier by the fact that physically he is not feeling 100% this weekend.

“I’m actually feeling quite sick at the moment, I caught something last week, but it’s bad timing for this weekend I suppose,” declared Lirim. “I’ve never been so sick in a race weekend, but I cannot do anything about it. Luckily we don’t have to drive so much, and I don’t have to do some magic this weekend to win the Rookies championship, just bring the car home and get some points, but I’ll still try to be at the top. I like Monza, everybody likes Monza, also it’s not such a physically demanding track so that’s OK for me. Slipstreaming was what was missing last time here in qualifying, and I didn’t have the slipstream in the race either so that’s something I will certainly have to improve this weekend.”

The Monza finale is the sixth round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia 2024 season and will get underway on Friday 4 October with free practice from 2.10 pm to 3.10 pm. Qualifying on Saturday will decide the two starting grids for the weekend starting at 9.20 am, with the green light for race 1 again on Saturday at 3.50 pm. Race 2 will then wrap up the season on Sunday starting at 12.40 pm.

Classification

Overall:

Rookies: