The 2023 Ferrari Challenge World Finals got underway on the Mugello track with the first of the three Qualifying sessions scheduled for today; this one was for the Coppa Shell AM contenders, and it saw Motohiko Isozaki take the fastest time from Martinus Richter.
The Japanese driver stopped the clock in 1m53.531s, preceding his rival from the Mertel Motorsport team by just 62 thousandths. Richter was the only one able to get close to the Cornes Motors Shiba team driver, although Kirk Baerwaldt did manage to improve quite a bit during his final effort, closing to within 3 tenths of Isozaki’s pole mark.
There was quite a battle instead for fourth position, with Paolo Scudieri and Josef Schumacher fighting it out in the timesheets in the last few moments. The Sa.Mo.Car driver prevailed, but by just 16 thousandths of a second.
Stefano Marrazzi was in sixth, with a gap of more than 1 second from Isozaki, but he still managed to qualify ahead of Henrik Kamstrup by a tenth and earn himself a better starting position for the first of the three World Finals scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Tommy Lindroth qualified eighth, far behind those in front of him, but over one second ahead of the following group headed by Bruce Cleveland who yesterday tried to beat Lisa Clark (only 14th today) and win the title, but without any luck despite deciding to take risks during the damp race.
Jeffrey Nunberg completed the Top 10 of the first World Finals Qualifying, finishing ahead of teammate Roger Monteforte by just six-hundredths and Pino Frascaro by three-tenths. Dana Goodwin, who put his #346 488 Challenge Evo slightly off-track, convinced the Race Direction to bring out the only red flag of the session to allow the track marshals to clean the road surface from the gravel thrown onto the racing line.
