Tom Lebbon and Josh Rattican remain first in the category Driver’s championship with two races still to run, their #78 McLaren Artura having claimed sixth and second placings at Monza last weekend while the “sister” #77 Artura of Tom Emson/Alex Denning claimed fourth and fifth positions – by far their best results of the season.
Elite heads to Saudi Arabia with a 36-point advantage with Lebbon/Rattican 32pts ahead of their nearest rivals.
A massive 50-car field fought for honours at the historic “Temple of Speed” in Italy which saw Rattican and Denning lining up third and fifth on the grid for the opening race, the second and third fastest Silver Cup cars.
Denning and Rattican lay third and sixth at the end of the first lap under Safety Car conditions and were fourth (#77) and fifth (#78) after 26mins when another incident caused a Full Course Yellow neutralization with Rattican shuffled down to eighth at the re-start.
Emson took over the #77 after 34mins with Rattican pitting the #78 to Lebbon three-laps later. The Elite McLarens ran fifth (#77) – Emson having been barged off into the gravel losing places – and sixth (#78) prior to another FCY, Emson and Lebbon finishing fourth and sixth overall under Safety Car conditions.
Lebbon began Race 2 from the front row, denied his third outright pole-position of the season by a mere 0.057secs, with Emson lining up third – his best quali placing of the year, equalling the #77’s best start position. Lebbon and Emson ran second and third early on, the top-four covered by less than 2secs, both Elite McLarens pitting together at mid-distance from second and third.
#78 (Rattican) jumped the erstwhile leader, who had also pitted at the same time, in the pit-stop phase while #77 (Denning) was placed seventh with all driver changes completed.
Rattican slipped to second-place with 20mins remaining while Denning moved up to fifth, #78 and #77 finally classified second and fifth respectively when a series of late Safety Car periods scuppered any hopes of achieving higher positions.
