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Scudería Fiat pilot
Emiliano Spataro was in front running form as the
competitors of Argentina's hotly-contested TC2000 series hit
the Autódromo Santiago Yaco Guarnieri at Resistencia,
Chaco,
over the weekend, the factory star driver claiming pole
position and victory in the opening sprint race to go with a
fighting fifth place in the feature race.
Coming into the fifth
round of their second season in TC2000 with the Fiat Linea, Scudería
Fiat are steadily grinding their way towards the front, having
scored points in the last three consecutive rounds (only
registering a zero points score during the season's the opening round) and with news
that the team will expand to run five factory cars once an
extra chassis has been built at the team's headquarters
at Villa Carlos Paz. That car will be in the
hands of former F3 driver CórdobaIgnacio Char. "It is an
honour to represent a brand like Fiat and to be an
official driver," said the Spaniard. "It's a dream come
true."
Spataro was immediately on the front-running pace around the 2.695 km Autódromo Santiago Yaco
Guarnieri, posting top-six times in both the opening free
practice sessions as the usual bumper field of 32 cars took to the track. In the first qualifying run, Spataro was
third quickest with a 1:03.021 best lap, just 0.24s off the
fastest driver on track, championship front-runner José
María López (Equipe Petrobas). Next up for Scudería Fiat
was Emanuel Moriatis (1:03.318) in twelfth place
while the third Linea on the time sheets, driven by Ezequiel Bosio
(1:03.347) ,was one place behind. The final factory
entry, Leandro Carducci, was two-tenths of this pair, he scraped into the top-twenty
with a 1:03.529.
Into second qualifying and the positions remained virtually unchanged: Spataro was third
quickest again with a 1:02.993, that was just 0.286 seconds off
Nestor Girolami who set the fastest time in the other Equipe Petrobas entry. Moriatis and Bosio again
squabbled over twelfth and thirteenth spots, this time the
latter got the edge, with a 1:03.415, giving him a
margin of 0.014 over his team mate, while Carducci
1:03.819) was nineteenth fastest again, meaning the
latter three Fiat drivers' were eliminated.
The final qualifying session saw everything come
together perfectly for Spataro and he blasted
his way to an unbeaten lap of 1:02.914,
just 0.012 ahead of Toyota Team Argentina driver
Mariano Werner. However with Werner being in the
championship top-twelve he dropped down six places on the grid,
as did the next drivers up, meaning that Toyota's second
highest placed driver, Francisco Troncoso, who posted
the seventh fastest time in the last session, moved up to the front row
alongside Spataro.
In the sprint race Spataro was never threatened, leading
away from pole and crossing the finish line after 17 laps
and 18 minutes 15.634 seconds to take a very comfortable
victory with a 10.130 seconds advantage over the Honda
of Nestor Girolami (Equipe Petrobas) and thus set
himself up on pole for the main race. It proved to be a strong
sprint race for the
Fiat drivers' on a track that clearly suited the Linea: Bosio
was in the thick of the action and fought his way up to
sixth place at the flag, part of a train of runners that
crossed the line in a nose-to-tail battle for third, while Moriatis
also climbed into the top-ten, finishing eighth: he was
involved in a big scrap during the race with Matías
Rossi (Renault Lo Jack Team). Carducci was
less lucky, he was eliminated in a big startline shunt that
also involved Matías Muñoz Marchesi (Peugeot
307/Vittal DTA) Bernardo Llaver (Toyota Corolla/Toyota
Team Argentina), Mariano Altuna (Honda Civic/Equipo
Petrobras) and Rubén Salerno (VW Bora/JM Motorsport).
In the main 41-lap feature race Spataro, starting from
pole position, quickly dropped to second palce, but was
embroiled in the battle for the podium positions right until a
light drizzle came down mid-race and he then dropped
slightly off the
pace. However Spataro eventually finished a strong fifth and that
hauls him up the championship standings to tenth place.
The race was won by Girolami, it was the Honda driver's first
victory of the season, ahead of Chevrolet's Guillermo Ortelli and his team mate Leonel Pernía, with Spataro
crossing the line 15.458 seconds adrift of Girolami.
Moriatis, bearing battle scars from a push-and-shove
start to the race finished in tenth place, 30.318 seconds back
from the winner, his first top-ten finish of the year, while Carducci fought his way up the
order to claim sixteenth position. Bosio was the unlucky
one out of the quartet of Fiat drivers: he retired on lap three.
The rapid pace shown by the Lineas at the weekend
rewarded Fiat with its biggest points haul of the TC2000
season so far in the manufacturers' standings, 13
points, which moves the Italian brand onto 29 points
where it is now nipping at the heels of Renault (32
points) which failed to collect any points in Resistencia.
After not troubling the scorers in the opening round of
the series, the Fiat Linea has shown great consistency and has
collected points during the last four consecutive races
(4, 10, 2 and 13 points respectively). Honda is
currently the runaway leader of the TC2000 with 144 points, with Ford
(93) and Toyota (58) rounding out the top-three. Then
comes Chevrolet (48) before Renault and Fiat occupy
fifth and sixth spots respectively, while the final
point scorer is Peugeot, although the French carmaker
has just one point to its name. In the teams'
championship Scudería Fiat is in sixth place while in
the driver's championship Spataro moves up to tenth
place, he now has 30 points and that leaves him 18 points adrift
of championship leader Norberto Fontana who had a
dreadful weekend picking up just 2 points. Bosio is eighteenth in the
classification with 5 of 12 rounds now completed thanks
to the two points he collected last time out while
Moriatis is in twentieth position, he finally gets off
the mark having scored one point for coming home in tenth place this
weekend. Carducci is yet to collect a point.
The sixth and next
round of the TC2000 series takes place at Autódromo Termas de
Río Hondo on July 18, the first round of the
mini-endurance series that takes place within the
championship when there will be two drivers per car and scene of Fiat's first win on
its return to TC2000 last year with Omar “Gurí” Martínez
and Felipe Maluhy.
ItaliaspeedTV:
TC2000 Rd 5,
Resistencia, Chaco - Scudería Fiat:
Qualifying /
Race
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