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Pescatori and Terrien take win

Christian Pescatori and David Terrien increased their lead in the SportsRacing World Cup with a clear victory at Donington Park. The former led from the start in his JMB team Ferrari 333SP and Terrien was more than a lap ahead of their nearest rival two and half hours later

Pescatori and Terrien were only headed during the pitstop sequences, but their task was made all the easier by the retirement of the next four fastest cars on the grid - two of them before the race had even started.

Werner Lupberger parked the Ascari-Judd he had qualified on the front row with an electronics problem on the warm-up lap. His retirement precipitated problems for two more of the front-runners. Because the Ascari was parked on the track, the race officials decided that the field should complete a second lap behind the safety car.

The front half of the grid accelerated out of the final corner only to lift off when the drivers saw the red light was still on. In the confusion, Panoz driver John Nielsen punted the R&M Riley & Scott of Mauro Baldi into the barriers. The Italian retired after crawling back to the pits, while the Panoz was forced to retire as a result of the accident 23 laps later.

Former Le Mans winner Nielsen described the incident as "one of the silliest things I've seen in racing" and claimed that he was not at fault for Baldi's retirement. "It was a complete misunderstanding on the part of lots of people."

Pescatori said: "It was a crazy start, but after that it was easy. At the end of the first lap I was three seconds clear and my team manager kept telling me to slow down after that. The car was good and we had no problems, even when it rained later in the race."

Pescatori's nearest competitor over the first half of the race retired shortly after half distance. Giovanni Lavaggi ran a distant second for the first 50 laps before handing over the GVL Brums Ferrari to team mate Nicolas Filiberti. The Argentinean spun into retirement halfway around his opening lap when a wheel came off.

That left the best of the Scuderia Italia Ferraris, driven by Philipp Peter and Marco Zadra, to take second place, one lap down on the winning car. The team's second entry, driven by Enzo Calderari, Angelo Zadra and Lillian Bryner, claimed the final place on the podium on the penultimate lap of the race.

A close fourth was the best of the SR2 cars, the Redman Bright Pilbeam driven by Mark Smithson and Peter Owen. A strong stint from the former sealed the class win for the class points leaders.

Dino Morelli and Richard Lyons led the SR2 classification for much of the race and finished less than 20 seconds behind in fifth place overall. Victory would almost certainly have been theirs but for a stop-go penalty incurred by the former for speeding in the pitlane.

Pescatori and Terrien are now 33 points ahead in the championship, with only 60 up for grabs over the remaining three races. Terrien said: "We are in a strong position and I think we can do it at the next race." The championship resumes at the Nurburgring on September 17.


Christian Pescatori/David Terrien JMB Ferrari 333SP 95 laps
Marco Zadra/Philipp Peter Scuderia Italia Ferrari 333SP 94 laps
Angelo Zadra/Enzo Calderari/Lillian Bryner Scuderia Italia Ferrari 333SP 91 laps
(SR2) Peter Owen/Mark Smithson Redman Bright Pilbeam-Nissan MP84 91 laps
Gianluca Giraudi/John Burton Tampolli Ferrari 333SP 91 laps
(SR2) Dino Morelli/Richard Lyons Tampolli-Alfa Romeo RS2-RTA99 91 laps

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