Academy Motorsport and Sharks Team Italia have joined forces to conduct a pre-season test at Cremona Circuit on 7 December to give Legends Car Italia drivers Simone Borghi, Jacopo Monti and “Wally” Walter Bruno a chance to test the EuroNASCAR cars.
The NASCAR Whelen Euro Series concluded their season back in October with the exciting EuroNASCAR Finals at Croatia’s Automotodrom Grobnik, but Academy Motorsport has kept themselves busy in the first month and a half of the off-season.
After announcing Vladimiros Tziortzis’ promotion to the EuroNASCAR PRO class as the new top class driver of the team’s No. 5 FJ on 5 December, Academy Motorsport conducted their first pre-season test on 7 December at San Martino del Lago’s Cremona Circuit.
Academy wasn’t alone in this test as they were joined by Sharks Team Italia – MK1 Racing Italia’s parent organization – to conduct the test together. The aim for the test was to give three Legends Car Italia drivers their first opportunity to test drive the EuroNASCAR stock cars.
The drivers that were chosen to test drive Federico Monti and Kasparas Vinglilis’ No. 2 Academy Ford Mustang are:
- Simone Borghi, the newly crowned Legends Car Italia champion who beat Alberto Naska for the 2022 title by 35 points.
- Jacopo Monti, a veteran Legends Car Italia driver who was selected to join Italy’s Legends Car team at the INEX Legend Cars World Finals in 2019.
- “Wally” Walter Bruno, the chief mechanic of Castelletto Circuit and the person who maintains all cars used in the Legends Car Italia championship.
Also present in the test is MK1 Racing Italia’s Claudio Remigio Cappelli, who was present to give Borghi, Jacopo and Wally a helping hand on their familiarization with the EuroNASCAR stock cars.
“I did a few laps on Cremona Circuit to give a reference time to the 3 rookie drivers, all of whom are my friends, and some data to compare,” said Cappelli on the joint test. “It was not a test to try the car as the car’s very balanced, nice to drive and was easy to handle.”
“Sharks and Academy are very close, so Mr. [Federico] Monti allowed me to drive his No. 2 car to get some data and numbers to share.”
Cappelli, who finished third in this year’s Legends Car Italia championship, was particularly impressed by the performance showcased by the Legends Car champion Simone Borghi during the test.
“My friend Simone Borghi, who won the Legends Car title in 2022 by beating Naska and me, is trying to enter in EN2,” said Cappelli. “He has been very fast on his first experience driving the EuroNASCAR. In fact, Simone gained 1.5 seconds over the course of the session!”
The test concluded on a positive note as Academy thanked everyone that participated in the test at Cremona.
“Simply thank you to all those who participated in a testing day yesterday in which collaboration and exchange of experiences proved to be really valuable,” said Academy on their social media after the test. “Thanks to the Sharks Team, Wally, Jacopo, Simone, Gianluca, Claudio Cappelli, Stefano Stefani and our Academy guys who follow us tirelessly!”
Disclaimer: Unless noted on the photo, all photos used in this article are courtesy of Academy Motorsport / Federico Monti.