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“After a day of action at Indianapolis, hear the perspective of the day’s winners”–Paul Ebeling
MCCARTHY, PETRAMALO REPEAT WINNERS AT INDIANAPOLIS
After an incredible sunny and warm day on Saturday, the tables turned on the drivers of the Ferrari Challenge series on Sunday when wet and cooler conditions set the stage for a fantastic end to the fifth round of the 2022 season at Indianapolis.
The weather conditions in fact set up a bruising day that forced drivers to find their best as a poorly timed deluge actually forced the cancellation of qualifying for the Coppa Shell category, while the Trofeo Pirelli session was cut short by incidents that brought an early end and jumbled the field.
The drivers, however put on an excellent show of daring and courageous driving in their Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo cars.
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“Qualifying kicked off the weekend Saturday at 10:40am EDT, followed by racing action at 1:25pm with the same schedule mirrored on Sunday. All qualifying and race sessions will be streamed live at live.ferrari.com” — Paul Ebeling
The drivers of the Ferrari Challenge series are set for the 5th stop on the 2022 calendar: Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As a venue that has hosted the series for the prior 2 yrs running, many of the drivers are now familiar with its particular mix of technical corners and dramatic speeds. Nevertheless, drivers will look to push their Ferrari 488 Challenge Evos to the limit in Sunday’s action.
Trofeo Pirelli
With Indianapolis acting as the opening stanza of the second act of this 2022 season, the championship picture should theoretically be coming into focus. Not so, however, in the Trofeo Pirelli category 4 drivers all sit within 10 points in the current standings.
Jeremy Clarke (Ferrari of Beverly Hills) leads the way with 63 points on the back of strong weekends at Daytona and Montreal, but calamitous results at COTA and Watkins Glen have left the door firmly open for the rest of the field.
Chief among them is Matt Kurzejewski (Ferrari of Westlake) who sits just 2 points back. He too suffered mightily at COTA, but has followed closely behind Clarke at Daytona and race 2 in Montreal, but well timed fast laps plus a podium finish at Watkins Glen have given him the title of Clarke’s greatest competition.
Two points further back we find the most dramatic driver of the group – Manny Franco (Ferrari of Lake Forest). Franco took a dominant win to open the season at COTA, but has since struggled and missed the Montreal weekend, relinquishing a sizeable points advantage. With his presence at Indianapolis in doubt, his presence at the green flag will be 1 of the most important questions of the weekend.
Meanwhile, Jason McCarthy (Wide World Ferrari) sits a bit further back on 53 points, but will need to rediscover his consistency from earlier in the season to make a real dent on the rest. Hopefully his win in Montreal will support his cause.
In the Trofeo Pirelli AM category: Dave Musial Jr. (Ferrari of Lake Forest) leads the way with a 10-point advantage over Alfred Caiola (Ferrari of Long Island) who sits a further ten points ahead of Todd Coleman (Ferrari of Denver). Musial’s distaste for flying has been well known in the paddock so despite the advantage, he’ll be looking to push hard for the next couple of rounds to hopefully sew up his championship before the series heads off to Imola in October for the FInali Mondiali.
Coppa Shell
Michael Petramalo (Ferrari of Seattle) used the Montreal weekend to surpass Brian Kaminskey (Ferrari of Long Island) for the championship lead on the effort of back to back class wins. Mr. Kaminskey wasn’t far behind, finishing 3rd in both races, but it was enough to generate a 7-point gap between the two drivers. The 2 are also completely in a class of their own as a number of drivers have missed various rounds in the category. Their nearest competitor Frank Chang (Ferrari of Seattle) sits third, but already is over 50 points behind Mr. Petramalo.
In the Coppa Shell AM category: Tony Davis (Continental Autosport) leads the way and has also developed a sizeable advantage of 30-points. Besides misfortune at Daytona in April, Tony has stood on the podium at every chance serving as a metronome of efficiency and pace. Sitting in 2nd is Lisa Clark (Ferrari of Beverly Hills). Enjoying her best-ever season of Challenge competition, Lisa saw a slight dip in form at Watkins Glen but made an important return to the podium in Montreal with a 3rd place finish in Sunday’s race as she attempts to consolidate her position ahead of David Schmitt (Ferrari of Palm Beach) who currently sits 9 points behind her.
Have a super racing weekend, Keep the Faith!
