Picco wins at Italian 1/8th On-road Nationals Rd1
Alberto Picco has concluded his weekend in the best possible way by dominating the 60 minute long final and taking the win at the opening round of the Italian 1/8th Nitro On-road Nationals in Bologna. Starting from pole position, he immediately opened a gap on Pirani, who suffered a front quick release failure some three minutes into the race, allowing reigning European Champion Dario Balestri to bump into 2nd position. Behind him, Collari moved his way up through the field after rolling his car in the first lap. 14 minutes into the race the 9-time World Champion manages to get past the Capricorn of Dario, only to be forced to retirement after a couple laps due to a pulley coming off on his car.
At the 21 minute mark Picco came in for a first tire change, but only changing the right hand tire proved to be a bad choice as his Mugen became out of balance during the mid-race stint. This allowed Shepherd driver Marco Vanni who, due to a better fuel strategy, had been able to pass Balestri, to close the gap and get into the lead right before changing tires. Picco went back to the point and with terrific driving managed to defend his advantage on Vanni until his second tire change at the 40 minute mark. Thanks to a tremendous job of Edoardo and Cristian Boni both were able to bring Alberto back on the track in the lead. From that moment on and on fresh tires the 43-years old only had to manage his 6 seconds lead on Vanni, who finished in 2nd place after a great weekend of racing. Balestri would complete the podium 2 laps down.
“I had a great start and my car was terrific in the opening laps, so I knew I had to fear nobody” was Alberto Picco’s comment regarding the start of the race when he managed to open a huge gap on the remainder of the field. At the first tire change though, things changed as talking about the two great saves he performed on the fast sweeper before the main straight he said “Only changing the right tires has been a bad choice, and I found myself driving a badly balanced car that forced me to drive very defensively”. With the second tire change he finally was on a good pace again, and only had to retain the 6 second lead he had on Marco Vanni.
Vanni was absolutely satisfied with both his performance and the behaviour of his package. Praising his pit crew for a “fantastic job and a great strategy with no mistakes whatsoever” he said changing tires only one time was the perfect choice, and that the great traction of his Velox allowed him to battle with a stellar Picco throughout the whole 60-minute final.
“We did the best we can currently do” was Dario Balestri’s comment at the end of the final which saw him rounding out the podium with a 2-laps margin from the leading pair. Adding that the potential he had had been fully exploited, he spent words of praise for the reliability of his package. “Everything is super safe, now we need to refine the car-engine combination tuning to be able to gain some runtime and be slightly faster” he said in relation to his strategy that consisted in four more stops than Vanni did.
In the F1 class the TQ Collavo would suffer a glow plug failure 7 minutes in the race, allowing to the front De Cesare, whose leadership would last until the third last pitstop when he crashed hard on the fast chicane before the sweeper causing him to break a tire. With his car impossible to drive, he had to go in for an extra pitstop that allowed Sartor to take the lead. The Shepherd driver then was able to control the race towards the end to take a well deserved win to start off the season in the best way possible.
Source: AMSCI News [amscinews.com]
