All eyes were on Nelson Piquet Jr. to see if he could make it two wins in a day, and the Brazilian certainly looked as if he could in the first half of the 50-minute race as he had a comfortable 1 second lead over the chasing group of Kyle Marcelli (Wayne Taylor Racing) and Giano Taurino.
The South African, who started fifth on the grid, had made a successful elbows-out dive-bomb move at the hairpin to slot into third on the opening lap, and he continued his terrific pace until the safety car came out with 35 minutes remaining as the marshals rebuilt the tyre wall following a crash for Ofir Levy (US RaceTronics).
When the race resumed at -21 minutes, Piquet was still leading from Marcelli and Taurino as the round of pit stops began to cycle through, but the man to watch was Spinelli as he put in an impressive pace to work his way through the leaders to take over from Piquet on lap 19.
The Brazilian was unable to keep up and also lost out to Wayne Taylor Racing’s Danny Formal and Patrick Kujala (US RaceTronics), but he then regained a place to finish third on the podium after Kujala was given a 5 second penalty for exceeding track limits.
In the PRO AM category, the win and the championship title went to Lew Bryson/John Dubets (PPM), who just held off Bryan Ortiz/Sebastiano Carazo (PPM), while Shehen Chandrasoma (MCR Racing) inherited the title, when his chief rival Nikko Reger (PPM) was forced to retire following a previous pit lane start.
After a disastrous day yesterday when his Flying Lizard Motorsports team had to repair the rear of his Hurácan following a crash, it was ‘zero to hero’ for Slade Stewart, who finished third in the Lamborghini Cup category to clinch the trophy.
