Lirim Zendeli took his Ombra Racing Porsche 911 GT3 to eighth on his GT racing debut this evening in the opening round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia after an intense three-way battle for sixth at the Misano World Circuit. Starting from row 4 of the grid after qualifying P7 in the morning, the MIM-contracted German driver lost one place to Bayley Hall on the opening lap, but immediately charged past the Australian to move back into seventh.

For the remainder of the 30-minute plus 1 lap race, Zendeli found himself embroiled in a hard-fought three-way battle for sixth with Alberto Cerqui and Marvin Klein, but despite being faster than the Italian throughout, he was unable to find a way past and with his tyres providing less grip in the final few laps, he was unable to hold off the attacks from the experienced Frenchman behind, who passed him on the final lap to leave him with a P8 finish.

All things considered, Lirim and his Ombra Racing team were quite pleased with his debut race, which he tackled as a rookie, in the floodlit and difficult conditions of the evening, with a still unfamiliar 911 GT3 machine, and up against numerous more experienced and successful Porsche experts in a 31-car field; these included the race winner and reigning champion Larry ten Voorde from the Netherlands, runner-up Keagan Masters from South Africa and two-time French Porsche champion Klein.

“I think I did a good race except for my mistake on the last lap, when I locked up the front,” declared Lirim. “I took it careful because I couldn’t see Marvin on the inside but I left the door open and without that I probably could have stayed in front of him. Still, I had quite a lot of good pace and possibly could have got up to the top 3, but Cerqui was too slow and that was damaging my front tyres, because I was in a sandwich. It was good that I could hold Klein off pretty well for the whole race because he’s a Supercup winner, so we know where we are more or less. I’m P4 tomorrow on the grid, I’ve got to get a better start than today, but with this pace I feel sure we can get a podium tomorrow.”