Gorini and Tamburini grab second GT2 win of the season in Misano opener

The #1 Maserati GT2 climbed from third on the grid to the head of the field after mandatory pit stops cycled through to confirm victory for Gorini and Tamburini by a gap of 21 seconds, on a home event for the Italian LP Racing team.

Second place went to the ever-consistent Team MZR for a third race in succession. Martin Koch handed the #812 KTM over to Reinhard Kofler in the second half of the 50-minute race, and the Austrian picked off his rivals to take the runner-up spot.

LP Racing also had reason to celebrate in the Am class, as Prette’s third place on the road was enough to seal his second Am success of the term. He swapped places with the #87 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG of Gilles Vannelet and Jean-Luc Beaubelique on three occasions, the #2 Maserati coming out on top in a thrilling battle.

Motorsport 98 seperated the two as Eric De Doncker and rapid team-mate Loris Hezemans surged from 13th to fourth overall. Behind the #87 Mercedes, Alexandre Leroy grabbed a personal best result of sixth for another Am class podium visit.

Tamburini and Gorini do Italian job with strategic Misano win

Prette was the star of qualifying and started from pole position in the #2 Maserati, but an opportunistic move at turn one by Vannelet eased the Akkodis ASP Mercedes into the early lead. For the remainder of the first stint, Prette chased the Frenchman hard until finally finding a way up the inside of Vannelet under braking for turn four.

Behind the pair, Gorini pitted at the earliest opportunity to hand car #1 over to Tamburini, and it would be a key factor in the fight for the win. With less compensation seconds to serve after a retirement at Circuit Paul Ricard, Tamburini inherited the lead and would sprint clear for the pair’s second win.

Beaubelique took over from Vannelet in second but soon lost out to Prette in a dramatic three-wide move at turn four, with Kofler’s KTM also involved. The end result was Kofler taking two spots in one lap to seal second place for Team MZR with Koch.

Prette completed the top three and finished best of the Am runners as a result, but behind them an exceptional stint by Hezemans propelled the Dutchman and De Doncker to fourth place for Motorsport 98 ahead of the similar Mercedes of Beaubelique and Vannelet.

Leroy was next up for TFT Racing to also round out the Am class podium in the #24 Maserati. Stéphane Perrin and Jörg Viebahn were also big movers for NM Racing as they climbed from 11th to seventh in their Mercedes-AMG.

The top 10 was rounded out by the trio of True Racing’s Sehdi Sarmini and Klaus Angerhofer (KTM X-BOW), Pascal Gibon and Christophe Bourret (Mercedes-AMG) and the LP Racing Audi R8 LMS GT2 of Michael Doppelmayr and Pierre Kaffer.

Results are HERE