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Manuel Lauck and Florian Scholze stayed out of trouble to triumph in the second Super Trofeo Europe AM & Lamborghini Cup race at Vallelunga in the World Finals.
Their nearest competitors tripped over themselves, paving the way for the Dorr Motorsport team to scoop its second win of the day.
The opening stages of the 31-lap race were led by Raffaele Giannoni’s Tricolore Huracan from Antonelli Motorsport’s Glauco Solieri and his team-mate Davide Roda in third.
The three cars ran nose-to-tail as they approached the mandatory pitstops at half-distance.
During this sequence, Roda managed to nab second off Soleri and by lap 17 was able to snatch the lead from Giannoni.
It looked as though victory was assured for Roda, but he was the master of his own downfall.
Firstly, he tapped the rear of a backmarker and badly damaged the left-front of his Huracan machine.
That allowed Giannoni to close back on Roda as the leader was struggling with his damaged car. With seven laps to go, Giannoni attempted a move at Vallelunga’s final corner – named after the nearby capital Roma – but Roda held on.
As they approached the braking zone of Turn 4 a lap later, Giannoni dived to the inside, but at the last moment Roda turned into his rival and spun himself out of contention.
Dorr pair Scholze and Lauck had run fourth early on but were up to third after the pitstops. After watching Giannoni and Roda tangle at Turn 4, Lauck was able to seize his chance and take over the lead of the race.
Giannoni recovered to second, but Roda struggled to rejoin the racetrack and fell to the tail of the field. Giannoni finished three seconds behind Lauck at the flag and four seconds ahead of early leader Solieri.
Konrad’s Christopher Bruck (sharing with Carrie Schreiner) finished fourth just 0.1s ahead of Jake Rattenbury and Aleksander Schjerpen. That was despite time penalties for both cars. Bruck was given an 11s penalty for an on-track clash, while Rattenbury’s was for a pitstop misdemeanour.
Frenchman Ange Barde was sixth ahead of the VS Racing pairing of Piero Necchi and Andrzej Lewandowski.
In the Lamborghini Cup class, Dutchman Gerard van der Host beat fellow countryman William van Deyzen with Thai racer Supachai Weeraborwornpong in the Team Lazarus entry third in class.