- Schandorff beats Amici/Mitchell to Pro title on countback
- Basz and Lewandowski win Pro-Am championship for Imperiale Racing
- Teenager Aghakhani wins Am class on World Final debut
- Supercross star Chad Reed crowned Lamborghini Cup champion
Sant’Agata Bolognese/Jerez de la Frontera, 27/10/2019 – In front of 15,000 spectators, the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals came to a close at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit in the south of Spain, with more than 50 cars competing to be crowned world champions in the Pro, Pro-Am, Am and Lamborghini Cup classes.
In dramatic fashion, Target Racing’s Frederik Schandorff clinched the Pro category title after finishing the weekend tied on points with the Prestige Performance/Wayne Taylor Racing duo of Sandy Mitchell and Andrea Amici. With each crew claiming one class pole, victory and second place, Danish driver Schandorff was eventually confirmed as champion thanks to more regional championship race wins than Amici/Mitchell.
Race 1 on Saturday was an enthralling contest from start to finish as Schandorff led off the rolling start into Turn 1 for the first time. He was closely followed by Conor Daly in the #146 Precision Performance Motorsport machine, with Amici slotting into third place before an opening lap safety car intervention. That was because the Bonaldi Motorsport car of Jack Bartholomew and the Hojust Racing Huracán of Afiq Ikhwan Yazid made contact at Turn 3, which sent the Malaysian into the gravel trap. The European Pro-Am ArtLine Team Georgia of Harald Schlegelmilch also had to go through the gravel in avoidance.
The order at the front remained largely unchanged ahead of the mandatory pit-stop window opening. But Mitchell, having taken over from Amici, was able to jump past Daly’s team-mate Brandon Gdovic into second place, which enabled the Scotsman to launch an attack on the lead during the second stint. Mitchell made several attempts to wrestle the lead from Schandorff’s team-mate Jonathan Cecotto, but the Venezuelan driver was astute in his defence at Turns 6 and 15 to cling onto victory by little more than a tenth of a second. Gdovic came third ahead of Cedric Sbirrazzuoli in the #127 Dream Racing car, with Alberto Di Folco fifth for Target Racing.
With the Pro-Am car of Loris Spinelli and Gerhard van der Horst starting Race 2 from pole, Mitchell was the leading Pro car off the rolling start. The #101 was then shuffled back to third when di Folco barged past at Turn 1, with Sbirrazzuoli close behind in fourth. Spinelli surged to an impressive 20 second lead at the head of the field, but Amici quickly took the lead after the pit-stops. However, he was also followed by Schandorff, with the Dane surviving a post-race penalty of 0.336 for a short pit-stop to come home second and therefore champion on countback.
In the Pro-Am category, Imperiale Racing’s Karol Basz won the title alongside team-mate Andrzej Lewandowski in the #6 Lamborghini Huracán ST Evo, taking both race victories. The Polish pairing were made to sweat at the end of the second race after a spirited attack from the Super Trofeo Asia entry of Afiq Ikhwan Yazid (Hojust Racing); the pair separated by just 0.475s at the flag.
US RaceTronics’ Steven Aghakhani was the dominant force all weekend in the Am class, as the sixteen-year-old took both pole positions and both victories in relatively comfortable fashion. The American was challenged hard by the AGS Events combination of Nico Gomar and Gilles Vannelet, but the experienced partnership were left to rue a spin in each race as Aghakhani remained untouchable.
Aghakhani finished the World Finals weekend on a maximum 32 points, which put him 12 clear of McKay Snow of Change Racing. Leipert Motorsport’s Jake Rattenbury ended up third in the standings, after completing the weekend as a solo entry, following a heavy accident for team-mate Mikko Eskelinen on Friday.