Jordan Sherratt and Gianfranco Giglioli represented the Sant’Agata Bolognese brand in the SRO GTWC Esports Sprint Europe Pro class’s second round in Zandvoort.
Sant’Agata Bolognese, 5 May 2022 - Automobili Lamborghini Esports Team drivers Jordan Sherratt and Gianfranco Giglioli competed in the second round of the SRO Esports GT Europe Championship, taking place at Zandvoort as a night race on the evening of May 4th.
Taking advantage of testing with Squadra Corse engineers and team members, Sherratt and Giglioli honed their cars throughout pre-event testing and came into the event looking stronger around the twisty Netherlands circuit compared to the previous round at Misano.
Qualifying was a busy affair with nearly 50 cars out on track throughout the 30-minute session and Jordan Sherratt managed to qualify in P11, 3 tenths off the pole position. Gianfranco was just under 3 tenths further back in P22.
As the lights went out for the 60-minute race through the night, Jordan made a great start to move up the field through the enthralling first few laps with cars running nose to tail, capitalising smartly on some rival’s incidents. Meanwhile Gianfranco was having a more challenging time given the lack of overtaking opportunities around the narrow Dutch circuit where he picked up some damage early on.
With the pit window opened 15 minutes into the race, Jordan stayed out setting competitive laps in a close train of cars which went from the leader throughout the top 10, meanwhile Gianfranco was trying to manage the damage he had acquired trying to recover from the bottom of the top 20 of the huge 48 car grid and decided to box soon into the pit window.
With assistance from Squadra Corse strategy and a super overtake on Michael Tauscher, Jordan put in a couple of laps in free air which allowed him to pit and come out ahead of his main rivals to run P6. It wasn’t easy however as he picked up a front-right puncture with 25 minutes remaining, but a stellar drive from Sherratt held off his rivals to finish 0.5s ahead of the chasing pack. Gianfranco unfortunately had too much damage to progress through the field and came home in P18, just shy of the points positions which he had achieved in the first round.
Jordan, driver of car #63 commented, “I felt like we would be a bit more competitive here and I was happy to see in practice the pace seemed to be there or thereabouts. Qualifying was a bit tricky with such tight gaps between the cars, but the race went well, and we managed the strategy well. This gives me optimism that we can continue our forward progress to get onto the podium”.
Gianfranco, driver of car #97 shared “This was a tough event from my side. I was relatively happy with my qualifying lap, but the overall pace just wasn’t there this weekend and the damage I picked up meant I couldn’t move forwards. I will work hard for the coming weeks to improve my performance and get onto the pace, especially for the first round of the Endurance championship at Bathurst later this month.”
Team Principal of Automobili Lamborghini Esports Dan Wells shared his thoughts on the latest event: “I was very pleased to see the step in performance for this event, the drivers and team worked well together to move further up having finished 8th last time out, and 6th this time, we aim to keep the momentum in the coming events as we close the gap to the leaders. For Gianfranco, it was a difficult race stemming from a tricky qualifying, but we will work hard to improve as a team and look forward to our first event with Giorgio Simonini as our third driver for the IGTCE campaign which starts on 21st May.”
The next round of the SRO Esports GT Europe takes place in Nurburgring on June 8th. Before then, the team will be in action for the delayed first round of the SRO Esports Intercontinental GT Challenge at Mount Panorama for a 12-hour race on May 21st.
