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| July 10, 2011 | |
| POLE, VICTORY AND ROOKIES TITLE FOR ALBERTO CERQUI IN MISANO | |
| 10/07/2011 - Alberto Cerqui lived a weekend as great protagonist in Misano Adriatico, theatre of the sixth round of the Superstars Series valid for both the Italian and International series.
The talent from Brescia driving for BMW Team Italy set the pace starting from Friday tests where he obtained the best time (1'41.784). This performance was later on confirmed on Saturday in the first practice session (1'41.664) as well as in the second (1'41.461). Qualifying were very exciting and involved a very intense challenge between Cerqui and his team mate and reigning champion Thomas Biagi: the two battled for the pole until the final fastest lap set by Alberto (1'41.255) that awarded him with the pole position of the two races for the third time in this season Race one saw a virtually perfect Cerqui at the start that did not give any space away to rivals authoritatively getting the lead. In the following laps, and all the way up to the chequered flag, he kept a very high race pace awarding Cerqui with the first victory in the Superstars Series and with the fastest lap of the race (1'42.505). Alberto also had the satisfaction of being the youngest driver winning a race in the history of the championship. In race two, the 30kg sportive ballast imposed by the regulations influenced the performance of the M3 BMW driven by the young Italian driver that was skilled anyway in being the first to come out of turn one and in keeping the lead for the first part of the race. Despite the age, Cerqui showed a good amount of maturity while fighting with experienced drivers like Luca Rangoni (Mercedes) and Andrea Bertolini (Maserati), obtaining a very useful fourth place for the championship. This result was later turned into a third place due to a penalty given to Luigi Ferrara (Mercedes). With three rounds to go, Cerqui is now second in the International Series championship with 99 points, 19 shy of the leader; he also occupies the same position in the Italian championship where thanks to the 60 points he is four points adrift the leader. In the rookies classification Cerqui stands now at 30 points and is mathematically the new 2011 champion. Alberto Cerqui: "At the eve of this round I was quite confident of doing good things but the overall result of this weekend, with the victory and the rookies title went beyond my expectations. I could not wait to win my first race with BMW Team Italy, an exceptional team that welcomed me from day one in the best possible way and that is allowing me to learn a lot: I dedicate this victory to Roberto Ravaglia, Umberto Grano, to all engineers and all the guys of the team with whom I have a really special feeling". The Superstars Series will be back on track next 7 August in Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium). | |