The last round of the Italian National Championship was held in Battipaglia at the beautiful new Speedy Car track. A smallish number of drivers (around 70) attended the event due to the poor weather conditions: rain!
Thursday and Friday where dedicated to testing and the high temperatures gave the track high grip; superfast laptimes were the result. After the two controlled practice sessions Barbera was fastest, followed by De Felici, Gentile, and Crea.
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On Saturday morning the rain fell heavily and the heats started in the afternoon in dry conditions but with low grip and slow lap times. After the heats there were several NT1 cars at the top: Antonio De Pasquale was TQ, Giorgio DeFelici was 2nd, Umberto Gentile was 3rd (S720), and Mario Spiniello was 4th (G4). It was not a direct porting into the final for championship leader Guido Barbera, who could not race the last heats due to the rain. In F2 the championship leader Simone Mencarelli was again TQ, showing good performance all weekend.
On Sunday it rained again and all finals where done under rain or wet conditions. After the semi-final many, Team XRAY drivers put seven NT1 cars in the final main event! Guido Barbera, De Felici, and Calce were all battling for the championship victory, all with XRAY cars.
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Now it was time to make the tough strategy decisions for the final. The track was getting dry so some drivers chose to start with normal tyres and some drivers chose to race with super soft wet tyres. Barbera and Calce used normal 37SH tyres while De Felici, Gentile, and De Pascuale chose dry tyres. The track conditions remained wet for the entire final so Gentile won the race with De Felici and De Pascuale in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. Barbera finished in 6th place, winning the championship over De Felici
Final results:
1. Umberto Gentile 2. Giorgio De Felici XRAY NT1
3. Antonio De Pascuale XRAY NT1
4. Calce Mimmo XRAY NT1
5. Davide Stefanizzi 6. Guido Barbera XRAY NT1
7. Mario Spinello
National Championship final standing F1: 1. Guido Barbera XRAY NT1
2. Giorgio De Felici XRAY NT1
3. Umberto Gentile 4. Domenico Calce XRAY NT1
5. Antonio De Pasquale XRAY NT1
6. Mario Spiniello 7. Giovanni Crea XRAY NT1
8. Davide Stefanizzi
9. Raimondo Gilletti 10. Paolo Gaggiola XRAY NT1
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In F2 class Mencarelli won the final over Giarritta Mirko, with Oscar Pizzo finishing in 3rd place.
National Championship final standing F2: 1. Simone Mencarelli XRAY NT1
2. Magno Giustino 3. Andrea Giacalone XRAY NT1
