Christian Lundgaard denied Lorenzo Colombo victory in the second race of the weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, with the Dane becoming the fourth different winner in as many races.
Colombo had started from pole position and held the lead at the start and through two early safety car periods, but Lundgaard edged ahead soon after the second restart, with the MP Motorsport driver then keeping the JD Motorsport ace behind him until the chequered flag.
The start was chaotic, and three cars were out before reaching turn one, with a fourth receiving a penalty for the next race for causing it! Alexander Smolyar will head into race one at Silverstone next month with a four-place penalty for race one after causing a collision with Alex Peroni, with the Australian finding himself shunted into the wall as a result of the contact.
Both Axel Matus and Vladimir Tziortzis had nowhere to go and collected Peroni’s broken car, and all three were left stranded at the edge of the track to necessitate the use of the safety car, while Smolyar was forced into the pits at the end of the first lap to retire such was the damage to his own car.
The second safety car was needed when Neil Verhagen’s tough weekend came to an end in the barriers at the second Lesmo bend, with the Red Bull-backed Tech 1 Racing driver leaving Italy without scoring any points across the weekend.
Colombo judged the first safety car perfectly but Lundgaard remained tight on his tail on the second restart, and despite the positions remaining the same into the first chicane, Lundgaard edged into the lead heading into the second chicane and withstood the pressure from the Italian until the chequered flag to triumph by 0.422 seconds.
Max Fewtrell was running third in the early stages but a collision heading into the Ascari Chicane with Yifei Ye caused both to run through the gravel trap and fall towards the rear of the field, and although the latter was able to climb back up to seventh, he was handed a post-race ten-second time penalty that dropped him outside of the points to fifteenth.
Taking advantage of all the issues ahead of him, and coupled with some of the great overtakes everyone knows he can do, Max Defourny claimed his first podium finish of the season for MP Motorsport, although the Belgian had his work cut out over the closing laps to keep Logan Sargeant behind him, with the duo ending just 0.453 seconds apart.
Victor Martins did well to finish fifth for R-ace GP and was closing on the quartet ahead of him over the closing stages, while Thomas Neubauer scored his first points of his Eurocup career in sixth for Tech 1 Racing.
Ye finished seventh but lost the position due to his penalty, promoting Thomas Maxwell up to seventh for JD Motorsport, while Frank Bird also secured his first points of his Eurocup career in eighth for Tech 1 Racing, with Richard Verschoor of Josef Kaufmann Racing ninth ahead of Fewtrell, who claimed the final point on offer despite falling down to twentieth following his incident.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza Race 2 Result
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