Mini gets a maximum at last
FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN IMOLA (ITA)
7-8 MAY ROUND 2/10
Gabriele Mini won both races on the road at Imola, but only one of them counted.
The Sicilian was hit with a 10-second penalty in Saturday’s encounter for inching forward from pole, due to a clutch glitch, before lights-out. Not too bad a sanction, you might think. Except this farcical race featured two red flags and two further safety car periods. ART Grand Prix starlet Mini was therefore dumped to 28th place on corrected times.
Mini’s team-mate Mari Boya could have won and ran second early on, but somehow Prema-run Ferrari protege Dino Beganovic found time during a fleeting moment of green-flag racing to demote the Spaniard into Tamburello. The Swede therefore won from Boya and two more Prema drivers,
Paul Aron and Sebastian Montoya.
There was more drama on Sunday, but 2020 Italian F4 champion Mini survived it all to finally notch up his first FRECA win in 24 starts. On a damp-but-drying track, he was leading Beganovic and Michael Belov when a thunderstorm caused a red flag and a switch to grooved Pirelli tyres.
Mini headed the restart from Beganovic, while Kas Haverkort (Van Amersfoort Racing) bravely survived wheelbanging with Belov to take third, and Gabriel Bortoleto and Hadrien David also took advantage to slip past the Russian.