Gordon Barnes extends his overall lead in EuroNASCAR Club Challenge with a victory in Vallelunga, the third win of his career at the Italian circuit.
Marko Stipp Motorsport’s Gordon Barnes is once again unbeatable in EuroNASCAR’s regularity-based division Club Challenge after he took home the top prize in the second round of the 2024 season at Autodromo Vallelunga.
Barnes, already a three-time champion in the division, continued his winning ways after he won the opening round at Valencia last month.
He was the fastest in the first session and even though sixth was the best that he could do in the second session, it was more than enough to secure a back-to-back victory in 2024 as well as the Brit’s third consecutive victory in Italy.
“It’s a lot of fun, quite warm and tricky!” said Barnes in the Victory Lane. “They moved the goalposts over time so when you get a rhythm, you have to find another rhythm. It keeps it interesting and makes it more challenging.”
“It’s three years in a row here and this is my tenth win as well. I love this track so much, there’s such a good variety of corners. You got fast, slow and cambered corners, S-bends and hairpins, everything that you can imagine is in here!”
The battle in Club Challenge at Vallelunga was particularly fierce with only six points separating Barnes from sixth place finisher Yann Schar. In fact, only two points separated Schar from Bruno Costa and Reza Sardeha, the drivers who completed the podium positions.
Costa recovered from a poor first session with a victory in the second one while Sardeha took a fourth and a third. The latter also gained three bonus points from choosing a faster reference points in both sessions.
The bonus point proved to be crucial as it allowed Sardeha to edge out Andreas Kuchelbacher, who missed out on the podium despite a double top-3 finish in the timed sessions.
The podium finishers from Valencia were all struggling in Vallelunga. Federico Monti was only fifth while Edouard Fatio finished two places behind in seventh. Kelvin Hassell and Mario Buscemi rounded out the finishing positions.
Barnes’ back-to-back wins meant that he now has 149 points in his tally, seven points ahead of Monti. Despite a poor result for the Swiss driver, Fatio still exits the round in third place on the standings, albeit with an eleven point deficit.
Kuchelbacher, Sardeha, Costa and Hassell completed the championship positions among the full-time contenders with part-timers Dani Briz, Schar and Buscemi filling the top-10 positions.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.