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Dylan Pereira wins the season opener in pouring rain

Dylan Pereira wins the season opener in pouring rain

Dylan Pereira has won the season-opening round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup on the Formula One racetrack in Imola, northern Italy. Unbothered by the rain, the Luxembourger from the BWT Lechner Racing team scored a convincing lights-to-flag victory.

The race

Larry ten Voorde (Team GP Elite) from the Netherlands crossed the finish line second ahead of the British BWT Lechner driver Harry King. Laurin Heinrich (D/SSR Huber Racing) concluded his first Supercup race as a Porsche Junior in fourth place. The Danish rookie Bastian Buus put in a strong performance in another Porsche 911 GT3 Cup fielded by the BWT Lechner Racing outfit and was rewarded with fifth place.

Five minutes before the scheduled start of the race, torrential rain fell over the grandstands of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, which were packed for the first time after two years of pandemic-related restrictions. All drivers mounted treaded rain tyres on their ca. 375 kW (515 PS) Cup-911 and the field started behind the safety car. Pereira made the most of his pole position advantage and promptly pulled clear of the pack. “My car setup worked well on the wet track. It was very stable in the corners,” revealed the Luxembourger, who opted for a slightly steeper rear-wing setting and thus more downforce on the rear axle compared to the second-qualifier Larry ten Voorde. “I was able to focus on not making any mistakes and choosing the line with the best grip.”

Larry ten Voorde faced a tougher job. The reigning Supercup champion had to fend off his pursuers’ attempts to overtake him for the entire race, which was interrupted by another safety car phase. First, it was Bastian Buus who was glued to his bumper, until the Dane made a driving error which relegated him to fifth place. Then Harry King tried everything to get past the GP Elite Cup-911. “I didn’t quite have the speed I’d expected,” admitted Ten Voorde, “and that made my race anything but boring. Someone even gave me a nudge twice but I saw it coming both times in my rear-view mirror and managed to prepare myself. So I’m more than happy with second place.”

Harry King struggled slightly with the shortened race duration. “I took up the race from the seventh grid spot and managed to quickly work my way up to third. If I’d had a couple more laps I might have overtaken Larry,” concluded the British racer. King, on the other hand, did manage to get past Porsche-Junior Laurin Heinrich already in the second lap. “I didn’t get my front tyres up to temperature. This made my race really difficult. But anyway, I earned critical points with fourth place,” analysed Heinrich.

For a long time, Bastian Buus was running in third at his first Supercup race. In the end, fifth place earned him the trophy for the best-placed rookie. The fastest ProAm driver was Norwegian Roar Lindland from Martinet by Alméras.

“It was emotionally overwhelming to experience the start of the Porsche Supercup’s 30th season on the same racetrack where it all started back in 1993. I’m extremely impressed with how professionally the drivers and teams responded to the unexpected downpour shortly before the start. Despite the tricky conditions, the race was a demonstration of motor racing at its finest,” commented Michael Dreiser, Director Sales at Porsche Motorsport.

For the next race, the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup heads to another tradition-steeped Formula One racetrack: From 26 to 29 May 2022, Monaco will host the international one-make cup with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.

Result 1. Race Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, Imola (I)

  1. Dylan Pereira (Luxembourg/BWT Lechner Racing), 30.09.383 minutes
  2. Larry ten Voorde (Netherlands/Team GP Elite), + 2.014 seconds
  3. Harry King (Great Britain/BWT Lechner Racing), + 2.995 seconds
  4. Laurin Heinrich (Germany/SSR Huber Racing), + 4.371 seconds
  5. Bastian Buus (Denmark/BWT Lechner Racing), + 4.659 seconds
  6. Dorian Boccolacci (France/Martinet by Alméras), + 7.615 seconds

Full race result on:

https://motorsports.porsche.com/germany/de/category/mobil1supercup/pmsc-2022-results

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en.html

 

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Source: René Staud