David Vidales took home a well-deserved P3 podium finish in the GT3 ProAm class – and fifth overall – in his debut race in the opening round of the Italian GT Endurance Championship at Misano World Circuit driving an AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

Together with Italian Leonardo Colavita and Egypt’s Ibrahim Badawi, the trio of young drivers started from ninth place on the grid for today’s three-hour endurance race after David’s qualifying laps had been compromised by yellow flags and then red flags during his 12-minute run.

Colavita got a great start to power the Ferrari into fourth place behind the Tresor Racing Audi R8 LMS of Mazzola/Rauer/Cazzaniga and two VSR Lamborghini Huracan GT3s after just seven laps, a position that Badawi and Vidales both improved on during their half-an-hour stints, first moving into P2 and then P1 in class at the 100-minute mark, which also awards points for the championship.

Then, on their second round of stints, the three men always remained in the top 3 positions and only slipped off the overall podium during the final stages.
Victory went to the Audi, which dominated the race, followed by the Imperiale Racing Huracan of Denes/Cola/Guidetti, with Jackson/Azzam/Jeffries (Audi R8 LMS) pushing the AF Corse trio down to P4, a result that became P5 after the flag with the awarding of a penalty for an incorrect driver change.

“I’m very happy with the result,” declared Vidales post-race. “We have a very good team and the potential is incredible to fight for the title. I was feeling very confident before the start because I knew we had a good pace, we were basically leading the race in our class and fighting for the overall, so that’s very good.

“I was lying P3 overall and P1 in class, but in one of the pitstops, we did it 0.8s faster than the time allowed – the penalty is times 3 so it was 2.4 seconds and because of that, we dropped down at the end. The Audi took me on the final lap, he was just too close and we were going to lose the position anyway and I was trying not to lose any more time.

“The main issue we had was not putting on new tyres at the end of the stint because we did a double stint with these tyres, and everyone else had new tyres on. Nevertheless, it’s a good result starting from P9, and we also scored more points for the championship half-race because we won it at the 100-minute mark. All in all, it was a great weekend.”

NEXT ROUND: 20/22 June, Monza

Photo @ AF Corse