The young Otto Fritzler (Ford) became the surprise winner of the Turismo Carretera (TC) race this Sunday at the Termas de Río Hondo racetrack, for the sixth date of the annual calendar of the popular automobile category.
The 20-year-old driver from the San Miguel neighborhood knew how to contain the onslaught of Diego Ciantini (Chevrolet) from Balcarce, who finished in second position. The TC Pista champion last season added his first victory in the category in his sixth presentation, after accumulating a time of 51m. 44s. 376/1000 to cover the 22 laps of the 4,023-meter long Santiago track.
The competition ended three laps ahead of schedule due to the eventful final that took place in Termas, where the safety car resorted to intervening five times, due to different collisions between the vehicles.
Ciantini led for the first 13 laps, but then Fritzler, after the fourth pitch, got past him and settled into the lead position which he held until the close.
“We started from sixth place and the idea was to add. But he had a very good car, better than in the series” confessed Fritzler, who in relation to the touch he had with his escort in the third restart said that it was a maneuver ” in which neither of us understood each other”.
Jonatan Castellano (Dodge) from Lober made a comeback from 28th. He placed and finished in third place, also becoming the new leader of the championship.
“We knew that we could advance but we never imagined that we could get on the podium, after qualifying in 28th place,” Castellano expressed to the radio program ‘Campeones’ (AM 590).
Santiago Mangoni (Chevrolet) from Balcarce finished in fourth place, 8s behind. 741/1000; Ayrton Londero (Torino) from Entre Ríos finished fifth, 9s behind. 060/1000 and Quilmeño Esteban Gini (Torino) was sixth, 12s away. 676/1000.
Further back were Juan Catalán Magni (Ford) from Reef, Juan Cruz Benvenuti (Torino) from Neuquén, Emiliano Spataro (Ford) from Buenos Aires and Mauricio Lambiris (Ford) from Uruguay to complete the top ten places in the classifier.
Julián Santero (Ford) from Mendoza, second in the championship positions, finished in thirteenth position, while Christian Ledesma (Chevrolet) from Mar del Plata suffered a delay due to a puncture in one of his tires and finished in sixteenth place.
In the TC Pista, the victory was in the hands of Cordovan Facundo Chapur (Torino), with a time of 37m. 00s. 066/1000 for the 20 laps. Second came Agustín Martínez (Ford) from Paraná, 6s away. 768/1000; while Jeremías Olmedo (Ford) from Salta was classified third, at 7s. 160/1000
Castellano is the leader of the TC tournament with 192 points, followed by Santero with 187.5; while the Uruguayan Lambiris is third with 177.5. Further back in the annual ranking are Catalán Magni from Buenos Aires, with 170.5 units; Mariano Werner (Ford) from Paraná, with 161; Mangoni from Balcarce, with 143.5 and also Uruguayan Marcos Landa (Torino), with 142.
The next race, the seventh of the season, will be on Sunday June 11 at the Rafaela racetrack.