Rain makes it a real Endurance test for Stuart
ITALIAN GT Endurance Championship challenger Stuart Middleton made a great start to his title bid at a rain-lashed Pergusa.
He secured a second-place finish alongside new team-mates Raul Guzman and Kevin Gilardoni in the opening two-hour race of the campaign.
Middleton, from Ashington, starred in the wet ‘Superpole’ style qualifying with a clear pole position at the wheel of the No.54 Lamborghini Huracan GT3, 0.5 seconds clear of the competition, to really put down a marker of his intent.
Atrocious weather impacted the start of the race, which began behind the safety car, and resulted in a red flag stoppage after five minutes circulating at relatively low speed through rivers of rain.
When round one resumed, again behind the safety car initially, Middleton led away impressively but the Imperiale Racing trio had to ultimately settle for second place.
Middleton said: “I gave it my all, I tried my absolute best and I knew I had to push every lap to the maximum as we knew the No. 27 Ferrari was going to be very strong in the wet – and especially as the track started to dry a bit as well.
“They had the pace on us after that, we have the biggest restrictor of anyone through the balance of performance so we were down about 10km/h top end.
“I got held up behind backmarkers when I was trying to lap cars and just worked the tyres too hard.
“By the end of the stint I had no tyres left and had two moments where I went a bit offline and had to go straight on.
“It was not ideal but it is racing and you have to give it your all.
“They were definitely the worse conditions I have raced in.”
He added: “The weather affected most of the weekend really with some of the practice and normal qualifying scrapped.
“So we just had a short 10-minute Superpole-style qualifying.
“The team asked me if I wanted to do it and I was happy with the lap, half a second clear was good.
“In the end, we have started the season with a strong second place and the top Lamborghini as well – a great result.”
Starting off the event very well in testing with the fourth fastest time, the Imperiale trio was equally quick in practice before the rain intervened.
The arrival of the poor weather meant changes to the timetable, qualifying moving to Sunday morning and reduced from three sessions to just one.
Middleton delivered impressively in the wet, though, the Lamborghini GT3 Junior Programme racer dominating with a sensational best lap of 1m 45.128 seconds to take the first pole of the new Italian GT Endurance season.
There is now a lengthy break of seven weeks in the Italian GT Championship calendar with round two taking place at Mugello over the weekend of July 8 and 9.
Middleton was due to be back racing at the weekend in the latest round of the British GT Championship at Donington Park in the East Midlands.