24
Iacone and Nogues
draw in Austria
After the opening round at Imola, the
Clio Cup Italia moved to the sweet hills
of Stiria, a region of Austria. On the up-
and-down Red Bull Ring, the Clio RS
1.6 Turbo cars were a perfect fit and
that resulted in two very exciting races.
It’s between that corners, the dualism
between Iacone and Nogues started
with the Spaniard cruising to pole with a
large margin. The Rangoni Corse driver
had to sweat to keep Iacone at bay in
the first few minutes as the Italian tried
hard to pass him. Nogues held his right
foot down though and after having held
the lead, he secured the margin he
needed to go on and win comfortably.
Behind him, Lorenzo Nicoli found the
right path between the first-laps
exchanges and handed Rangoni Corse
an 1-2 finish. In third, Massimo Ferrara
gave the Melatini—Veregra team a
podium finish in front Lema’s Ivan Pulic.
Unfortunately for him, Iacone settled for
fifth place due to differential woes. But
for the Italian and Essecorse, victory
wasn’t too far away as they cruised to
the front in a race where their main rival
Oscar Nogues got a drive-through
penalty for a contact with Simone
Melatini. The Spaniard took third place
behind a fast-paced Massimo Ferraro,
who made it to the podium thanks to a
clever run. Pulic, Puccetti and Ricciarini
could have achieved more, but they
also got penalized for contacts and for
not respecting the track limits. So fourth
place ended up in the hands of guest
driver Enrico Bettera who got the most
of many great duels.
Lorenzo Nicoli
Massimo Ferraro
