Spaniard José Antonio Peñalta continues his winning streak by clinching a back-to-back victory in Rookie Challenge.
José Antonio Peñalta remains on top in EuroNASCAR’s regularity-based division Rookie Challenge. The Spaniard followed upon his debut victory in Valencia with a dominant performance in Vallelunga.
Peñalta topped both sessions, easily taking home the victory and claiming the maximum 80 points. With three out of four wins so far, Peñalta is having one of the strongest starts for a Rookie Challenge debutant in history.
“The first session was really good, I made one mistake but otherwise it’s almost perfect,” said Peñalta in Victory Lane. “The second was a little bit worse, but it’s still very good. I feel great because I won again!”
Peñalta led a Speedhouse 1-2 with 2017 champion Andreas Kuchelbacher finishing in the runner-up spot. Kuchelbacher was second in the first session and followed it up with a third place result in the second one.
SpeedHouse nearly completed a podium lockout in Vallelunga, but Russian-born Italian Daniil Shapka denied them from the result.
Shapka and SpeedHouse’s Nuno Caetano scored the same amount of total points, but Shapka gained one bonus point from choosing the third fastest reference time out of everyone in the grid.
As it turns out, this bonus point was enough for Shapka to secure his maiden Rookie Challenge podium. Shapka’s stablemate Davide Frulio made it two Sharks Team Italia affiliated drivers inside the top-5 positions.
Maxim van Laere’s outing in Vallelunga did not go as smoothly as the Belgian had expected. Maxim had difficulties in matching his reference time and had to settle for sixth in the final results.
Mike Wise had a spectacular first session with his runner-up finish. Unfortunately for the American, a difficult second session relegated the wakeskating champion all the way down to seventh.
Wise still finished ahead of defending champion Federico Monti, who can only muster up an eighth place finish at his home venue. Yann Cristovao and Nicole Davidson rounded out the top-10 positions ahead of Bruno Mulders and Vanessa Neumann.
Both Mulders and Neumann are focusing towards their upcoming outings in EuroNASCAR OPEN. The same goes for Team Georgia, who forgoed Rookie Challenge eligibility in favor of setting up their No. 9 GASF Camaro for the races.
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