May 17, 2018

 

Risto Kappet takes the win and a commanding championship after a resurgent Arne Schoonvliet retires due to a technical problem.
Qualifying was extremely close as expected in the classic Monza straights. In the end it was Risto Kappet who took pole by only 0.004s from former Superleague champion David Fidock, entering the series in the Streetfighter Corvette. Chris Shepherd was 3rd, only 0.030s off Kappet, continuing his blistering form. Championship challenger Arne Schoonvliet could only manage 7th, 0.416s off pole, being beaten even by his new teammate Erhan Jajovski who lined up 5th, 0.283s from pole.

The race started smoothly for the leader Kappet who made a small gap by nailing his braking points in the opening corners, but the man on the move was Yuri Kasdorp who used his Corvette's top speed to great effect, blitzing past the opposition, including Kappet. The joy did not last long with an incident forcing Yuri to retire before half distance.

Arne Schoonvliet had much greater race pace than in qualifying and had opted for a bold strategy, racing on the soft tyres while most around him were on the mediums, a preferred tyre so far in the series. However the few corners of Monza were easy on tyres and Arne managed to bide his time in the first quarter of the race and then passed all those who started infront of him, overtaking Kappet before the pitstops and holding the lead after it. The gap was small between the leaders and it was unknown if the soft tyres would last on Arne's car to keep the lead, but 12 laps before the finish his computer suffered a crash and his race was over on the spot.

Kappet had an easy run to the finish, second belonged to Chris Shepherd after a very busy evening of racing, leading home a train of cars containing Fidock, Bogusz and Jajovski, all covered by less than second and a half on the finish line.

The race stretches Kappet's championship lead, a lead hard to cut into if the Estonian remains consistent.
On the teams championship however, STAX racing take the lead with great performances again by both of its drivers.

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