The Polish driver had to win to keep his hopes alive in the battle for the runner-up slot with Germany’s Axel Sartigen (Lueg Sportivo-Herter Racing), and win he did, hauling himself to within two points of his rival in the standings.
Roman got a great start to lead from Sartigen but veteran Franz Engstler (Scuderia GT) forced his way past into second after a couple of laps as they German duo continued to thrash it out in their season-long battle for supremacy.
Half-way through the 30-minute encounter Engstler had reduced the gap to the lead to less than two seconds and with the safety-car coming into play for eight minutes after a layer of gravel was thrown onto the track by Ashish Patel (Kessel Racing), the stage was set for a final scrap between the two over the last couple of laps.
But Ziemian kept his cool on the restart and ran home a clear winner to take the 15 points. Engstler finished second with Sartigen taking the final podium slot.
The top three were followed home by an in-family Gostner battle between Thomas and his daughter Manuela (both CDP-MP Racing), but the elder got the better of the younger to grab the fourth place, while Peter Christensen (Formula Racing) was the best of the Coppa Shell AM cars in sixth place.
Fons Scheltema (Kessel Racing) finished right behind the Dane but was never really in contention for the leading positions and had to settle for seventh, while Alexander Nussbaumer (Gohm Motorsport-Herter Racing), Christian Herdt-Wipper (Saggio Muenchen) and Henrik Kamstrup (Formula Racing) rounded out the top 10, the latter three second, third and fourth in the AM grouping.
Two more of the Coppa Shell’s leading contenders were out of luck early on; Ernst Kirchmayr (Baron Motorsport) was fifth on the grid but spun into the gravel at the Rivazza, while Claudio Schiavoni (Scuderia Niki-Iron Lynx) got his Ferrari all wrong on the opening lap in the group, ending up in the gravel, but emerged unscathed from the incident without making contact.
