Andrea Amici and Artur Janosz started the Super Trofeo Asia race weekend in Shanghai (22-23 September) at the head of the championship standings from FFF Racing Team by ACM teammates Jack Bartholomew and James Pull and further extended their advantage as the weekend played out. It was another successful weekend for the Chinese-based team on home soil, especially in the second race, with Amici and Janosz taking their fifth win of the season with Bartholomew and Pull finished a fighting second.
Amici lined up in his #63 Lamborghini Huracan in third position with Bartholomew in sixth in the #19. It was an action-packed start with Amici initially losing ground into turn one before fighting back in the long sequence of corner to regain third position from #38 Tekeshi Matsumoto and immediately putting second-placed #2 of Ben Gersekowski under pressure.
The race settled with Bartholomew getting the jump on Akhiro Asai to run fifth, while Gersekowski held back the advances of Amici to retain the position despite some creative racing lines in his attempt to pass, whilst defending from Matsumoto.
Janosz resumed in fourth position, exiting the pits just behind the #38 car and the battle continued before the two made contact at the first turn with less than 20-minutes remaining. Both resumed with Pull taking advantage of the clash to gain a position to run fourth behind his teammate.
The race was far from over however with Pull now under pressure from Juuso Puhakka. The duo traded positions on the penultimate lap before Janosz and Pull took the chequered flag in third and fifth positions respectively.
Sunday’s race saw Janosz and Pull start from fourth and sixth positions, the former making a great start to run second around the outside into the first turn to slot in behind the #33 of Puhakka. Behind Pull gained a spot as the #98 spun off ahead of him while the race leader was awarded a drive through penalty for a jump start. Janosz was aware of this and shadowed the leader and awaited the inevitable.
Janosz soon had a clear track and controlled the pace at the front of the field ahead of the mandatory stops. Amici took over at the head of the field with Bartholomew exiting ahead of Gersekowski. The tactic of running longer had worked perfectly for the team as they ran one-two to the chequered flag.
Amici and Janosz have extended their lead in the Pro class to 124-points, 25 clear of their FFF Racing teammates.
“The first race was good for us and we gained valuable points with both cars,” stated Team Principal Andrea Caldarelli. “We almost started where we finished, so nothing really gained or lost although James struggled a bit at the end of the race. We also had an incident with Jack in practice, so we had limited mileage and we made some very positive changes to the cars ahead of the second race. To end up first and second was an exceptional result and a credit to all of the hard work put in by the team and drivers.”
The series now moved to Vallelunga, Italy, for the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals on 17-18 November.