Gomez Wins Am World Title after Benefiting from Ciglia Spin

Change Racing’s Victor Gomez won the Am class at the Lamborghini World Final by a single point over Massimo Ciglia after prevailing in the second Am/LB Cup race at Misano.

Gomez, who finished second in this year’s Super Trofeo North America Pro-Am standings, won the 50-minute contest on Sunday under safety car conditions following an accident for LB Cup race leader Terry Olson, but had been almost 10 seconds out front.

Race 1 winner Ciglia came through in third after squandering a potential chance to win the global Am class title due to a solo spin shortly before his mandatory pit stop.

Gomez ran second in the opening stint to Gabriel Rindone, who inherited pole from Jordan Missig whose Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO was withdrawn after an accident in the early stages of the opening World Final contest.

Gomez soon turned into the net leader when Rindone was handed a three-second time penalty for cutting the first corner, in a battle with the eventual winner and Lewandowski.

VSR driver Lewandowski dropped out of contention early on when his Lamborghini developed a brake problem.

Gomez and Ciglia sat behind a penalized Rindone through to the pit window, which opened after 20 minutes of racing.

The Puerto Rican driver emerged from the stops ahead of Rindone anyway, setting him on course to take the maximum 15 points for a race win.

During the mandatory pit cycle, Ciglia rotated his Oregon Team Lamborghini at the Turn 10 right-hander, costing him valuable time to the leaders.

Ciglia, who passed Gomez for Race 1 honors, ended up 10 seconds behind the leader in fourth place after his mistake.

His original position one place behind Gomez would have been enough to bring the title back to the Oregon crew, however losing two places gave Change Racing the advantage.

Ciglia advanced to third when Rindone spun out of the podium battle with 13 and a half minutes to go, but couldn’t find a way past Raffaele Giannoni in the remaining time until the safety car came out with less than four minutes left on the clock.

Gomez, who beat Ciglia by 27 points to 26, was around 9.5 seconds clear of Automobile Tricolore driver Giannoni when the safety car occurred due to a crash in the LB Cup.

Class leader Olson was coming under pressure from John Hennessy in the closing stages when his North America class title-winning No. 147 car looped around exiting the final corner.

The rear of Olson’s Lamborghini struck the left-side barriers and the car was in no shape to continue.

That gifted the race victory to Hennessy, who earned the LB Cup world title accolade in the process after also winning Saturday’s race for the US RaceTronics organization.

Father and son Donovan and Luciano Privitelio took second in the World Final LB Cup standings with a third-place finish in Race 2, behind Gerard van der Horst.

Giannoni’s podium saw him take fourth in the Am aggregate leaderboard behind Gomez and Ciglia, while Ashton Harrison ranked fourth after fighting from an early spin to take a second consecutive fourth-place race finish at the World Final.

The final race of the World Final event – round two for the Pro/Pro-Am group – gets underway at 2:25 p.m CET (9:25 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Am/LB Cup Race 2 / Aggregate Result