Filippi unstoppable on Friday in Imola

Lucas Filippi

Luca Filippi was unstoppable today in Imola. In the two morning testing sessions the series leader followed his opponents very closely, but when the official event started, with the two Free Practice sessions, he managed to leave everybody behind. The Euronova Racing driver clinched the best time of the whole day, 1'32"324, but he was the quickest also in the last Practice, even with a slower time (1'32"872). In the combined classification of the whole day, including also the two testing sessions, Filippi is ahead of Giorgio Pantano. The SuperNova driver is hoping for a strong performance tomorrow to recover after a really unlucky start in Brno, and given the pace shown throughout the day he is undoubtedly among the favourites. The other championship leader, Edoardo Piscopo, stopped the clock on the 3rd laptime of the day thanks to a big step forward in the last session, after finding a good setup solution with the Dams engineers.

These three drivers were the only ones to get below the 1'33" mark, followed by Duncan Tappy with 1'33"122, confirming a really good job by DAMS. Behind the brit was Fabio Onidi, in the top five of every session apart from the fourth one, while Adrien Tambay was 6th. The frenchman even did some laps on a full tank to simulate the first race laps, getting a very good feedback from his car. Seventh was Jonny Reid, thanks to a really good third session, followed by Fabrizio Crestani, right on the pace despite not racing from last October. Crestani was ahead of a Charouz-Gravity Racing trio, with the newcomer Stefano Coletti in front of Walter GrubmÃ¼ller and Jan Charouz. The Czech, reserve driver of the Renault F.1 team, was satisfied about his car because his best laptime was realized with used tyres, so there's still some room for improvement. Charouz was ahead of Julian Leal, who had to work a lot with Trident Racing to overcome the handicap of losing the whole first testing session. Leal was followed by Carlos Iaconelli, Celso Miguez and Federico Leo. The italian driver missed both Practices because of an accident in the second testing session in Piratella.

Imola, combined times of Friday, May 21

1.Luca Filippi Euronova 1'32"324
2.Giorgio Pantano SuperNova 1'32"822
3.Edoardo Piscopo DAMS 1'32"970
4.Duncan Tappy DAMS 1'33"122
5.Fabio Onidi Lazarus 1'33"187
6.Adrien Tambay Charouz-Gravity Racing 1'33"217
7.Jonny Reid SuperNova 1'33"324
8.Fabrizio Crestani DAMS 1'33"381
9.Stefano Coletti Charouz-Gravity Racing 1'33"680
10.Walter GrubmÃ¼ller Charouz-Gravity Racing 1'33"852
11.Jan Charouz Charouz-Gravity Racing 1'34"164
12.Julian Leal Trident 1'34"204
13.Carlos Iaconelli Durango 1'34"220
14.Celso Miguez RP 1'34"291
15.Federico Leo Trident 1'34"466
16.Stefano Bizzari RP 1'34"466