MATTIA BUCCI CLAIMS MAIDEN PODIUM IN ITALIAN GT CHAMPIONSHIP

The Imola round in the Italian GT Sprint Championship handed to the Catignano ace his first trophy in GT Cup

Mattia Bucci’s debut at the “Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola” in the Italian GT Sprint Championship was one to remember. The young Abruzzese talent from the Best Lap team, together with his teammate Filippo Croccolino, managed to climb onto the bottom step of the podium at the end of a weekend marked by highs and lows.

Free Practices on Friday were immediately hampered by both mechanical anomalies and difficult weather conditions, which brought the work program to an abrupt halt. On Saturday, however, the high frequency of interruptions caused by red flags and Full Course Yellows prevented the crew of car no. 178 from improving their times, relegating Croccolino to 21st place and Bucci to 19th at the end of Q1 and Q2 respectively. Race 1 continued the negative trend, marking the second retirement of the championship due to technical problems.

Race 2 was a completely different story: at the start, Bucci immediately made his mark by gaining five positions before the safety car was brought out to clear up some cars involved in an incident. The comeback continued over the laps thanks to some overtaking before the pit stop, which was decisive for the climb: the Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo was parked on the pit lane apron by the Catignano racing driver in tenth position and was taken over by Croccolino in fifth, a testament to the excellent work done by the drivers in the laps before and after the stop. The top five was then confirmed under the checkered flag and then turned into a podium finish thanks to some penalties handed out by the Stewards. It is worth noting their extraordinary driving performance: both drivers overtook no less than sixteen cars to claim the bronze medal, especially considering the high difficulty of overtaking at the Imola circuit.

Mattia Bucci: “I’m really happy with the result we achieved at Imola, we deserved it after the technical problems we had. Despite everything, I always stayed positive and never gave up, me and my teammate pushed each other and I think that was the winning key that made all this possible. I’m truly speechless, I expected anything but the podium! I hope it’s just the first of many, now let’s get back to work to try to progress and further improve the result. I would like to thank Giovanni Minardi and Minardi Management, the Best Lap team, my teammate Filippo Croccolino, my family, my staff, my trainer Walter Marini and his team and all my sponsors for their incredible support.”

Matteo Gaudieri
Mattia Bucci’s Press Office