With the mercury nearly hitting 40 degrees, Vallelunga was the hottest race so far this season! After arriving on Wednesday, the team got to work to get the car ready for Thursday’s collective tests.

Our pace wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be during the first half of the collective tests, and in the afternoon, a failure of the crankshaft oil seal meant we lost most of our running time. Thursday evening, together with Elia’s feedback, the team decided to try another setup, to get a better grasp of how the car and Elia’s driving would react to the changes.

Friday was therefore a jump into the unknown and we had to work on refining our new set-up. However, Elia saw some improvement with his car behavior, and we decided to keep working in that direction for Saturday’s qualification sessions and the first race. Saturday rolled around & we slowly started to feel more comfortable with the car, Elia managed to qualify 24th and 26th. It wasn’t where we wanted to be but it was still a solid improvement compared to the past two days. A few tweaks later, we were getting more confident with the car and at the beginning of Race 1, Elia started gaining positions until a technical issue with the fuel system forced us to retire the car. It was disappointing, but at least we knew we were on the right track.

Sunday morning, Race 2: pace was still strong and Elia had climbed up to P19 when a driver collided with him and broke the rear left wishbone, leaving him stranded on track. The mechanics performed an amazing job, changing the whole rear structure of the car in time for Race 3. After a grueling start to the weekend, we ended on a positive note with Elia taking the checkered flag in P20 after having gained 6 positions. It was quite a tumultuous week-end overall but it just goes to show that when times are tough, you just need to keep your head down and keep pushing!

It’s now time to reflect on what we have learnt in the first half of the season to try to come back as ready as ever after the summer break.

The Maffi Racing Team
#drivenbyracing