Rubens Barrichello and Atila Abreu win in rain
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| Barrichello on the outside fights to keep his lead in the rain |
The tenth round of Brazilian V8 Stock Cars has brought an ingredient the series have not seen since April 2015: racing on a wet track. The usually hot Goiania spiced things up a little, putting the drivers to prove themselves on those conditions. The winners this Sunday afternoon were Rubens Barrichello, from the Medley Full Time team, and Atila Abreu, who scored his first win for the Shell Racing squad.
The championship leaders raced against each other on the first heat. Pole sitter Rubens Barrichello had to stay ahead of Felipe Fraga to shorten his points distance from the leader. Fraga tried to overtake the 44-year old driver, but Barrichello managed to keep his lead to win for the third time this season – although his other two wins were in the second heats.
They continued racing each other on race two, and Rubens got a solid fifth place without refueling – Fraga, on the other hand, stopped on the final lap out of fuel when he was second.
"Now it is all about calculations", said Rubens. "To be P1 and P5 at the same weekend is a great result. My team told me to win the first one saving fuel – like it was easy", he laughed. This saving, though, was the key for him to score the record of 40 points, while Fraga only took 25 in Goiania. In the standings, Rubens reduced the gap from 44 to 29 points chasing the lead.
Valdeno Brito scored another solid third place, while Marcos Gomes, Diego Nunes, Julio Campos, Daniel Serra, Nestor Girolami, Atila Abreu and Lucas Foresti closed the top-10 driver who started race two in reversed order.
The rain continued when the green flag waved. Foresti, starting from pole, got off the track in turn one, opening the path to Atila Abreu. The Shell Racing driver opened a three-second gap over Nestor Girolami, who had Red Bull’s Daniel Serra breathing down his neck for almost all the race distance.
A good battle was set up from P3 to P10 involving Serra, Fraga, Nunes, Brito, Campos, Barrichello, Gomes and Camilo – the only one who pitted for fuel on race one among the top-10. With no need to pit again, his goal was to push while the others had to save.
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| Barrichello in the #111 leads |
The final two laps were pure agony for the frontrunners. Girolami, in second, stopped out of fuel; Fraga, the new second placed driver, got out of the race as well on the final lap – the same happened to Valdeno Brito and others.
Atila Abreu, Diego Nunes and Rubens Barrichello were the "best fuel savers" of the race. Atila won for the first time this season; Thiago Camilo came second and Nunes got third. Max Wilson came fourth, with Barrichello P5.
"It was highly dramatic, because after race one we knew we need four or five more liters of gasoline to finish race two. A safety car could make things easier, but it did not come. I managed a good saving pace, but when I saw Girolami pulling out of the track with no fuel, my heart stopped", he said.
"My dashboard pointed there was no fuel whatsoever and I drove praying to God to avoid that to happen to me. It worked. I am really happy, because it has been a tough season for us. I am thankful to the whole team, who did a fantastic job and never stopped believing in us", Abreu finished. Galid Osman, Marcos Gomes, Vitor Genz, Guga Lima and newcomer Guilherme Salas were the top-10 finishers.
Brazilian V8 Stock Cars heads to its penultimate round at the Minas Gerais state brand-new race track, the ‘Circuito dos Cristais’, in the city of Curvelo, on November 20th.
Race 1 – Results*:
1) 111 Rubens Barrichello (Full Time Sports) – 28 laps in 48min00s997 (134,1 kph)
2) 88 Felipe Fraga (Cimed Racing) – a 3s822
3) 77 Valdeno Brito (TMG Racing) – a 8s930
4) 80 Marcos Gomes (Cimed Racing) – a 17s375
5) 70 Diego Nunes Uniao (QuÃmica Racing) – a 24s161
6) 4 Julio Campos (C2 Axalta Racing) – a 27s662
7) 29 Daniel Serra (Red Bull Racing) – a 28s655
8) 63 Nestor Girolami (Eisenbahn Racing Team) – a 30s064
9) 51 Atila Abreu (Shell Racing) – a 33s618
10) 12 Lucas Foresti (Full Time-ProGP) – a 35s931
11) 25 Tuka Rocha (RZ Motorsport) – a 37s423
12) 46 Vitor Genz (Eisenbahn Racing Team) – a 50s859
13) 21 Thiago Camilo (Ipiranga-RCM) – a 52s406
14) 99 Xandynho Negrao (Cavaleiro Sports) – a 54s589
15) 3 Bia Figueiredo (Uniao QuÃmica Racing) – a 55s266
16) 28 Galid Osman (Ipiranga-RCM) – a 1min18s592
17) 83 Gabriel Casagrande (C2 Axalta Racing) – a 1min31s232
18) 9 Guga Lima (TMG Racing) – a 1 Volta
19) 8 Rafael Suzuki (Vogel Motorsport) – a 1 lap
20) 117 Guilherme Salas (RZ Motorsport) – a 1 lap
21) 65 Max Wilson (Eurofarma RC) – a 4 lap
22) 0 CacA Bueno (Red Bull Racing) – a 7 lap
DID NOT FINISH
23) 26 Raphael Abbate (Hot Car Competi̵̤es) Рa 14 laps
24) 10 Ricardo Zonta (Shell Racing) – a 17 laps
25) 5 Denis Navarro (Vogel Motorsport) – a 18 laps
26) 73 Sergio Jimenez (Cavaleiro Sports) – a 18 laps
27) 110 Felipe Lapenna (Hot Car Competi̵̤es) Рa 19 laps
28) 18 Allam Khodair (Full Time Sports) – a 24 laps
29) 90 Ricardo Mauricio (Eurofarma RC) – did not finish
FASTEST LAP: Felipe Fraga, 1min33s319 (147,9 kph)
*Results subject to homologation by the stewards
Race 2 – Results*:
1) 51 Atila Abreu (Shell Racing) – 19 laps in 31min41s529 (137,9 kph)
2) 21 Thiago Camilo (Ipiranga-RCM) – a 1s825
3) 70 Diego Nunes (Uniao QuÃmica Racing) – a 6s473
4) 65 Max Wilson (Eurofarma RC) – a 10s351
5) 111 Rubens Barrichello (Full Time Sports) – a 10s566
6) 28 Galid Osman (Ipiranga-RCM) – a 12s613
7) 80 Marcos Gomes (Cimed Racing) – a 14s612
8) 46 Vitor Genz (Eisenbahn Racing Team) – a 16s142
9) 9 Guga Lima (TMG Racing) – a 17s119
10) 117 Guilherme Salas (RZ Motorsport) – a 19s913
11) 73 Sergio Jimenez (Cavaleiro Sports) – a 22s241
12) 8 Rafael Suzuki (Vogel Motorsport) – a 23s072
13) 110 Felipe Lapenna (Hot Car Competi̵̤es) Рa 23s146
14) 5 Denis Navarro (Vogel Motorsport) – a 24s314
15) 29 Daniel Serra (Red Bull Racing) – a 40s024
16) 25 Tuka Rocha (RZ Motorsport) – a 1min09s148
17) 99 Xandynho Negrao (Cavaleiro Sports) – a 1min19s239
18) 88 Felipe Fraga (Cimed Racing) – a 1 lap
19) 4 Julio Campos (C2 Axalta Racing) – a 1 lap
20) 77 Valdeno Brito (TMG Racing) – a 1 lap
21) 3 Bia Figueiredo (Uniao QuÃmica Racing) – a 1 lap
22) 12 Lucas Foresti (Full Time-ProGP) – 1 lap
23) 63 Nestor Girolami (Eisenbahn Racing Team) – a 2 laps
DID NOT FINISH
24) 0 CacA Bueno (Red Bull Racing) – 6 laps
25) 83 Gabriel Casagrande (C2 Axalta Racing) – a 10 laps
26) 10 Ricardo Zonta (Shell Racing) – excluded
FASTEST LAP: Thiago Camilo, 1min32s829 (148,7 kph)
*Results subject to homologation by the stewards
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:
1) Felipe Fraga, 252 points
2) Rubens Barrichello, 223
3) Valdeno Brito, 189
4) Marcos Gomes, 165
5) Diego Nunes, 159
6) Max Wilson, 159
7) Daniel Serra, 157
8) Vitor Genz, 149
9) Atila Abreu, 146
10) CacA Bueno, 138
11) Allam Khodair, 137
12) Ricardo Mauricio, 135
13) Thiago Camilo, 123
14) Galid Osman, 113
15) Julio Campos, 108
16) Ricardo Zonta, 108
17) Sergio Jimenez, 101
18) Gabriel Casagrande, 73
19) Rafael Suzuki, 72
20) Denis Navarro , 71
21) Nestor Girolami, 71
22) Guga Lima, 71
23) Lucas Foresti, 65
24) Raphael Abbate, 64
25) Felipe Guimaraes, 51
26) Bia Figueiredo, 50
27) Popo Bueno, 46
28) Felipe Lapenna, 41
29) Tuka Rocha, 36
30) Danilo Dirani, 30
31) Xandynho Negrao, 22
32) Luciano Burti, 11
33) Guilherme Salas, 6
34) Fabio Carbone, 2
35) Alceu Feldman, 0
36) Thiago Marques, 0
37) Beto Cavaleiro, 0
38) Cezar Ramos, 0