Sant’Agata Bolognese/Nürburg, 31 agosto 2019 – Imperiale Racing’s Kikko Galbiati and Vito Postiglione secured their third Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe victory of the season after a calculated drive in the opening race at the Nürburgring. Championship points leaders Danny Kroes and Sergei Afanasiev topped Saturday morning qualifying in the #3 Bonaldi Motorsport Huracán from team-mates Stuart Middleton and Jack Bartholomew, with Galbiati and Postiglione third. Galbiati started the #44 and made the most of a good start to leapfrog Bartholomew for second as Kroes led the early stages. The order remained the same until the mandatory pit-stops after which Postiglione rejoined marginally in front of Afanasiev.
From then on, it was plain sailing for the veteran Postiglione who opened up a victory margin of 14.525 seconds by the end of the race over Afanasiev.
Target Racing’s Alberto Di Folco secured the final step on the podium for himself and team-mate Davide Venditti after a dramatic three-way battle with Middleton and the Leipert Motorsport of Anthony Lambert in the closing stages. Middleton had held the position after the pit-stops despite not quite having the pace of those behind him. The British driver, who took over from Bartholomew following the opening stint, Middleton nearly pulled off the perfect defensive race until making a mistake coming through the Schumacher Chicane with less than five minutes remaining. Middleton spun the car a full 360 degrees but miraculously only dropped two places. He fought back ahead of Lambert on the final lap to finish a fraction behind Di Folco.
Behind Lagrange came the ArtLine Team Georgia Huracán of Harald Schlegelmilch. The Latvian stayed in the car all race, having started from the rear of the field and receiving a drive through penalty for jumping the start. Nevertheless, Schlegelmilch put in a sterling drive to finish as the top Pro-Am entry, beating the GT3 Poland car of Grzegorz Moczulski and Andrzej Lewandowski.
The battle for Am class honours was arguably the best of the race, as Robert Zwinger claimed a hard-fought victory in his GT3 Poland entry. Mikko Eskelinen and Jake Rattenbury led from pole in class in their Leipert Motorsport car but lost out to the faster Zwinger as the race wore on after the stops. Zwinger beat the AGS Events pairing of Nicolas Gomar and Gilles Vannelet by a little over nine seconds.
Lamborghini Cup honours went the way of Joseph Collado for AGS Events with the Frenchman easily finishing ahead of reigning champion Gerhard van Der Horst.
The second race of the weekend is scheduled to take place tomorrow morning at 09:35 CEST.