Al Dhaheri Takes Race 2 Victory at the Temple of Speed
- therookiereporters
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
Rashid Al Dhaheri comes across the line in with the win for R-ace GP for the first time since 2021 - taking the victory at Monza, the Temple of Speed.
A good start for pole sitter Dupé before contact into the first corner between Dupé and Abkhazava. Now in the lead was Maksimilian Popov. Nakamura-Berta went wide and fell further down the order from twelfth. The two race leaders - Popov and Ninovic spun out at Variante de Rettifilo. Al Dhaheri used race mode to get ahead of Abkhazava for third place. Ninoviv was investigated for the incident with Popov and received a 10 second time penalty
Yellow flags were waved at Curva della Roggia after a driver went off track but managed to quickly rejoin. Going wide into the gravel was Abkhazava, making him the first retirement of the race, he was joined by Dion Gowda. Also going wide was Marcus Saeter, however he managed to rejoin the track. The safety car was deployed and went in with 15 minutes to go.
It was back to green at the Temple of Speed with Salim Hanna charging after Dupé and managing to put himself into the lead. Going into Ascari, there was contact between the Trident of Andrija Kostić and the ART Grand Prix of Alexandre Munoz meaning the safety car came out for a second time in the race.
With 6 minutes and a lap to go, the safety car was in and it was back to racing and what a restart for Salim Hanna. However, Hanna went wide and was made to give a place back to Sebastian Wheldon. Two places made up by Al Dhaheri quickly turned into three as he took the race lead from Wheldon as Dupé, Hanna and Sano went three wide into the first corner for third place.
Emanuele Olivieri went off into the gravel whilst the RPM of Miguel Costa and a Trident and G4 car were running wide, triggering another safety car with 3 minutes to go and yellow flags being waved for the car of Kai Daryanani.
It was decided by race control that the race would finish under safety car conditions. So it was Rashid Al Dhaheri who crossed the line for the race win with Sebastian Wheldon in second and it was Salim Hanna who took the final podium position.
Ian Salvestrin spoke with race winner Al Dhaheri after the race.
IS - “Race winner, Rashid Al Dhaheri, it’s almost as hot as your home town of Abu Dhabi, congratulations mate a great victory!”
RAD - “I mean it’s crazy hot, blood pressure is nowhere right now but yeah at least I have the genetics for it, so I should be the last one to complain about the heat. Honestly, that race was absolutely crazy. I never had that much delta between the slipstream and being behind it’s just like one of those races where anything can happen.”
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