First Superstars win for Rangoni and Audi in race two at Kyalami

Lucan Rangoni, making his first appearance in the international Superstars Series for V8 production cars, made the most of his front row start position on the reverse grid for race two to take a commanding win in his Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4 at Kyalami this afternoon.

The 41-year-old from Bologna had finished seventh in this morning’s first 25-minute plus one lap race, but was unchallenged in race two as he made the most of his Audi’s all-wheel drive to win by just over three seconds.  He was also credited with the fastest lap of the race at 1 min 50,15 sec.

A seasonal Highveld thunderstorm was just minutes away from Kyalami as the 17 cars lined up for the rolling start, but the rain held off until the 12th lap of the expected 15-lap race, when a heavy downpour brought out the red flag to signal the end of the race.

The official result reflected positions at the end of lap 11 and saw Rangoni followed across the finish line by race one winner Fabrizio Armetta in a Motorzone Race Car Chevrolet Lumina CR8.  Armetta had started from eighth on the reverse grid after his earlier success (the top eight finishers from race one started in inverted order) and was already third by lap four, behind Rangoni and David Baldi (CAAL Racing BMW M5).  Baldi, who had started from pole position, found himself swamped by the faster cars and eventually finished seventh.

Christian Montanari (Habitat Racing BMW M3) followed up his second place in race one with third place, just half a second behind Armetta and 4,5 sec ahead of fourth-placed Gianni Morbidelli, the 2009 Superstars Series champion and a former F1 driver, in a ROAL Motorsport BMW M3.

Fifth place went to Max Pigoli (Max Pigoli Team Mercedes C63 AMG), who was followed by Ermanno Dionisio (Audi Sport Italia Audi RS4), the three CAAL Racing BMWs of David Baldi (M5), Roberto Papini (M5) and Mauro Cesari (550i), and Andrea Chiesa (Swiss Team Maserati Quattroporte).

An incident on lap two saw the retirement of two of the leading contenders when former F1 driver Pierluigi Martini (Zakspeed Team Chrysler 300C SRT-8) and former Olympic downhill skier Kristian Ghedina (Movisport BMW 550i) clashed in turn four while contesting third place.  Martini had finished fourth in race one and Ghedina sixth.

Final driver championship positions after round nine of Superstars:
1 Gianni Morbidelli (BMW) 197; 2 Stefano Gabellini (BMW) 151; 3 Max Pigoli (Mercedes) 137; 4 Roberto Papini (BMW) 124; 5 Pierluigi Martini (Chrysler) 122; 6 Mauro Cesari (BMW) 120; 7 Kristian Ghedina (BMW) 113; 8 Fabrizio Armetta (Chevrolet) 67; 9 Francesco Ascani (BMW) 62; 10 Roberto Russo (BMW) 61.