Ciglia, Perolini Take Am World Title With Weekend Sweep

Massimo Ciglia and Pietro Perolini took the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Am world title by completing a clean sweep of class victories at the Misano World Finals event, with Rexal Villorba Corse driver Karim Ojjeh doing the same in LB Cup.

Perolini took the No. 61 Oregon Team Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 to victory by margin of 5.462 seconds over Vincenzo Sospiri Racing’s Stephane Tribaudini, who finished second after coming out on top in a late multi-car scrap for the remaining podium positions.

After already taking victory during the opening race on Saturday, the No. 61 car started the deciding contest third overall, with Ciglia holding station in the opening stint behind polesitter Stephane Lemeret and ASR driver Paolo Biglieri.

Lemeret, piloting the No. 27 CMR Lamborghini, saw an initial lead over Biglieri wiped out by a safety car after a collision between Gabriel Holguin and Philip Tang at Turn 11.

After the race resumed, the Belgian again pulled clear of Biglieri, leading by some six seconds when the pit window opened.

However, as Biglieri was required to spend three seconds longer in the pits as a solo driver, it meant he dropped to fifth behind the newly installed Perolini and the No. 5 GT3 Poland machine of Adrian Lewandowski.

Out front, Lemeret had handed over the No. 27 car to Rodrigue Gillion, but the Belgian struggled for pace significantly against the chasing pack.

He quickly lost the lead to Perolini with a move at Turn 4, with Lewandowski, Biglieri and ANSA Motorsport driver Antoine Comeau all following suit in the laps that followed.

The race was then interrupted by a second safety car when the No. 170 TR3 Racing car ended up in the gravel after contact with another car.

The second safety car restart then saw a bizarre incident when second-placed Lewandowski ran into the back of Biglieri shortly before the race returned to green.

The resulting damage led race control to give Lewandowski a black and orange flag, which was later upgraded to the black flag when the No. 5 car ignored instructions to pit.

While Perolini controlled the remainder of the race to take the victory and the Am world title, the cars behind became involved in a hard-fought battle for the remaining podium positions.

Tribaudini, having taken over the No. 66 VSR machine from Piergiacomo Randazzo, made rapid progress in the closing stages and eventually got past Biglieri’s No. 32 car and went on to finish second when Lewandowski was black-flagged.

Biglieri came home in third, having come to blows with the No. 79 GT3 Poland car of Seweryn Mazur on the exit of Turn 9, with the latter spinning but continuing to finish sixth.

Comeau received a five-second penalty for track limits infringements, although that did not impact the podium order.

The overall top five was completed by Precision Performance Motorsports driver David Staab, while Garrett Adams came home in seventh overall.

In the LB Cup class, Saturday winner Ojjeh completed a clean sweep of victories to claim the world title in dominant fashion.

The Saudi Arabian finished eighth overall at the wheel of the No. 7 Rexal Villorba Corse machine, with the Italian squad securing a second consecutive 1-2 as the father-and-son pairing of Luciano and Donovan Privitelio again finished second.

Rocky T Bolduc completed the class podium at the wheel of the No. 199 RAFA Racing Team Lamborghini.

RESULTS: Am/LB Cup Race 2