Italia: Series Hockenheim race 1 report

Hockenheim, race one: Mancinelli brings Team Ghinzani back to the victory

With a bit more than a year and half from the last victory with Edoardo Piscopo, Team Ghinzani got a new success today at Hockenheim with Daniel Mancinelli, who proceeded Sergio Campana (Lucidi Motors) and Jesse Krohn (RP Motorsport), at his first podium in the Italian Formula 3 Championship.

Fifth position for the leader of the championship, Andrea Caldarelli (Prema Junior), author of a good recovery after the tenth place in qualifying. Among the rookies, victory for the author of the pole position Gabriel Cheves (Eurointernational),who finished in sixth absolute position.

Cladarelli keeps the lead of the championship at 36 points, followed by Richelmi (Lucidi Motors), fifth today, at 31. Mancinelli gets up to 27 points just ahead of Zanella (JD Motorsport) at 26. Among the rookies, Chaves is on top at 44 points. He is followed by Raimondo (Lucidi Motors) at 35.

Some comments from the paddock follow:

Daniel Mancinelli:
"I took the lead quite easily at the start, thanks also to a not perfect start from Chaves. At the hairpin I saw in my mirrors a bit of bagarre and I feared to be bumped. Fortunately nothing happened and from then on I thought only to push up to the chequered flag".

Piercarlo Ghinzani (Team Ghinzani, Team Principal):
"One of the duties of a Team Principal is to build a team able to work for the victory: I believe I managed to do it this year and I am hopeful that our team will get quite a few satisfactions".

Sergio Campana:
"During the first lap I was forced to go wide at the hairpin to avoid getting in contact with Ramos and this made me lose several positions. Fortunately this track allows overtaking and I managed to recover: the car was really good and without that initial episode I could have aimed at the victory. This podium is very useful for the classification anyway ".

Massimo Pollini (Ombra Racing, Team Principal):
"We certainly have the potential to be in the top ten, as emerges from the ideal laps of both drivers. We still have to work on the continuity of our performance but we are on the right track to get constantly within the positions that count".

Ernesto Bellisari (Line Race Technology, Team Principal):
"Palmeri suffered a lot of understeering and a wrong choice of gear ratios that, in the slipstream, caused the limiter to kick in. We will work on the single seater to sort these inconveniences before race two".

Alex Fontana (Corbetta Competizioni):
"In the initial laps the car was well balanced then I started to suffer a progressive understeering; by changing some trajectories I managed to limit the problem. It has been a good race and I am happy about my result ".

The weekend's programme will reach its conclusion tomorrow with race two, scheduled for 15.30 (Italian time, with live TV coverage on Nuvolari, SKY 218).

-source: f3 italia