Ibiza Racing’s Sergio Campana and SuperNova’s Narain Karthikeyan both took wins as Auto GP stormed Mugello.
The results for Campana means that he now is in joint lead of the championship with Kimiya Sato after the Japanese driver was hit into retirement by Christian Klien on the first lap of the first race.
However, in the second race it was Sato who capitalised on Campana retiring after pit stop issues. The Euronova driver gained himself a third place to tie the championship on 138 points.
In the first race Karthikeyan was unable to take up his pole position due to engine problems which meant he had to start from the pit lane, but he did managed to gain a podium finish. In race two though he managed to gain a 1-2 finish for SuperNova crossing the line 10 seconds ahead of team mate Vittorio Ghirelli who have helped the team claim a 53 point lead in the Team’s Championship.
Indeed Sergio Campana wasn’t expecting a win in race one any more than Karthikeyan expected to win the second. Campana had finished second behind Meindert van Buuren but the Dutchman was penalised 25 seconds post-race for crossing over the white line at the pit exit – that relegated him to tenth. It also moved Kevin Giovesi into the runner up spot.
Narain Karthikeyan said about the weekend: “I would have preferred to cross the finishing line in the lead, but considering that I risked losing many valuable points yesterday for an issue during the formation lap, I’m quite satisfied with how the weekend went. I also took advantage from the problem happened to my rivals and I’m getting closing into the overall lead in points. The next round will be at the Nurburgring. It’s a track that I know well and I want to get even more satisfactions there”.
Indeed, the Indian didn’t cross the line first – that honour went to Kevin Giovesi but he was penalised 25 seconds for not respecting track limits – being pushed down to fifth with the time added on.
Former F1 regular Christian Klien could have had a much better weekend, especially in the last race – failing to warm his tyres up thoroughly enough on the formation lap, he couldn’t put down the full power of his Zytek engine and span up his wheels as the lights went green and lost a handful of places. The Austrian would eventually finish ninth.
The next Auto GP race is at the Nurburgring on 17/18 August.
