It’s pretty much every red-blooded male’s dream to race a Lamborghini around a race track, but most of us are forced to give up on that dream pretty quickly.
Not so much for David Perel, co-founder of Obox, the guys responsible for building our website. The Cape Town local was fortunate enough to race at the Italian GT Championship as part of the Lamborghini Bonaldi Motorsport team, taking some time out to give us a unique behind-the-scenes and in-race look at how the event unfolded.
Below are some excerpts taken from his race report:
Because this was my first year in GT racing the team did not have high expectations however, the moment we hit the track, we were fast. We ended first practice 4th quickest and second practice went even better with the second best time of the day. Everyone, including myself, was surprised!
[As] I was the fastest driver in my team I went out first. My first lap was not great as I’d never experienced the format before but on lap 2 I was only 2/10ths behind pole position. The team immediately came on the radio and told me to push as hard as I could for my third lap. I did what I could but fell short but 1/10th of a second. Nonetheless we had done more than expected and qualified 2nd on the grid. A great result on debut!
In the Italian Championships it is compulsory that each car is shared by two drivers. In my case my co-driver was very experienced and also very close to my lap times. This was a great advantage for us because the leaders second driver, Steven Goldstein (Force India reserve driver), was not as quick this weekend. That meant that even though we pitted with a 3 second deficit, we had the pace to overtake them after the driver change.
Happily this is exactly what happened and from then on we pulled away and won our race by 20 seconds. This would be the first time I’d won a race in Europe and the relief was immense. So much preparation had finally paid off!
Not too shabby mate, although there was barely time to celebrate the victory as the next day saw the second and final race of the weekend:
As I left the pits we had dropped to 6th place but knowing we had a pace advantage I put my head down and pushed like crazy. As mentioned earlier we had some technical issues but we still managed to lap almost a second quicker than the rest of the field.
Slowly but surely I picked up places and with 6 minutes left in the race I was in third place and had the leaders in my sight. They were only one corner away and were fighting like crazy for the lead.
Approaching the final two corners the second place Porsche made a move for the inside which tapped the leader into a spin and opened the door for me to take second place at the final corner!
Our first and second place finished in each race mean we now lead the Championship. To say I am happy is an understatement. The next race is in Monza on May 29..
Well played David, it’s always lekker to see a fellow Capetonian showing the rest of the world how it’s done.
You can keep up to date with his progress on his Instagram and Facebook page.
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