Forzday Racing League: Race of Italy

The start of Round 6 at Monza

Round 6 of the FRL’s WTCC series arrives at the elegantly simple lines of one of the oldest tracks in the world, Monza. The Race of Italy promised high speed and fast action in the chicanes as the FRL’s top drivers look to make the most of the time left to move up the points standings.

Heat 1 began a little behind schedule as connectivity glitches made getting started a difficult task. Once on the track though, the green flag flew and Travis Billingsley made an immediate move to the front of the field of eleven cars. Everyone moved cleanly through the first chicane and the race was on. As they headed into Turn 6, Andrew Steppat drifted wide into the corner allowing Ethan Maestri to move alongside for the pass. Ethan drifted up the track on exit and he and Andrew’s BMW got together, sending Andrew into the gravel and back to 6th position. Bryan Dean was able to make the most of the fracas in front of him and pulled alongside Ethan in Turn 7, making the pass. As he maneuvered across the track, Ethan attempted to cross Bryan’s bumper and position his Audi outside of the #808 S3, but he didn’t have quite enough room and sent Bryan into the grass.

Andrew would climb back to 5th position and began to battle with Paul Maestri for P4. Paul made his Audi as wide as possible in the straights, and with both machines closely matched in horsepower, Andrew could not pull alongside and make a pass stick. He changed tactics to try and out-brake Paul into the corners, but Paul would check him up at every opportunity. Finally, heading into the Turn 1 chicane, Andrew late-braked and got alongside Paul. Paul moved over onto the #001 BMW and tapped him, getting the Apex Racing car loose and sent him careening into Ethan Maestri, who was just ahead and making his approach into the chicane. All three would scramble to collect themselves and get out of the chicane. Paul made it through first, followed by Andrew, Ethan would lose out in this battle and drop to P5. Andrew would finally get around Paul after the pit cycle and established himself in P3 for the heat.

Daniel Fleischman and Drew Dilbeck collide into the second chicane.

Further afield, Drew Dilbeck was setting up for hard braking into the second chicane of Turns 4 & 5 when he lost control of his Audi S3 and plowed hard into the back of Daniel Fleischman, turning him around and backing him into the tire barriers at the chicane entrance. Daniel would have to fight hard to recover. Matthew Smith and Nicholas Hargrove would run close to one another for much of this race with Matthew pulling up to, but not quite able to make the pass stick against Nicholas. In later laps, Matthew would lock up hard and hit the tire barrier getting into the Turn 1 chicane, briefly ending his run on Hargrove’s #5 Toyota. After a round of pit stops for the field, Matthew was able to bypass Nicholas and claim P8 from his rookie rival.

Daniel Fleischman & Tony Tyree suffered some early setbacks, but would settle into the flow of the race and advanced to P6 & 7, respectively. Travis and Bryan would do battle for much of the race at the front, burt in the end, Travis did a masterful job of keeping the #18 Volvo under control and would win the heat over Bryan. The second heat would have to wait though as connectivity issues worsened and the event had to be ‘red flagged’ until Monday night when the second heat would determine the final order for the Race of Italy.