Italian GT Sprint Cup: Pole and Race Win!

Lamborghini factory driver Scot Sandy delivered a dominate display on his debut in the Italian GT Sprint Championship at Imola, bagging pole position and a race win with VSR.

Mitchell, the 25-year-old from Forfar, was making a one-off appearance in the championship driving the No63 Lamborghini Huracan EVO2 GT3 prepared by top Italian team Vincenzo Sospiri Racing. Partnering regular driver Andrea Frassineti, Sandy replaced the team’s Edoardo Liberati who had a date clash meaning he couldn’t race at Imola.

“It was great to get the call from VSR to come and race again at Imola, and it’s fantastic to have been able to deliver a win for both the team and Andrea,” Sandy, the former British GT champ said. Sandy, personally-backed by Tunnocks, blitzed the timesheets in his qualifying session, lapping the three-mile Imola circuit in 1min 39.761secs. Not only was he the only one of the 21 drivers to break the 1:40s barrier, but he was six-tenths faster than his nearest rival.
Starting Sunday’s 50-minute race from pole, the Scot quickly established a gap over the sister #6 VSR Lamborghini of fellow factory driver Loris Spinelli. After five laps the advantage was just under two-seconds. By lap 10 the gap was 3.945s, with Mitchell posting the fastest lap of the race, 1:40.945s, on lap eight.

After 18 metronomically fast laps, Sandy pitted to hand the car over to Frassineti with 19 minutes remaining and with a gap of just over eight-seconds to the sister VSR car. Untroubled, the young Italian brought the car home to a dominant victory by more than 10secs. “I really enjoyed racing at Imola again,” Sandy continued, “and it was great to help Andrea to the win on what is essentially his home track as he lives just down the road from here. Plus it was fantastic for the team, also at their home track, to get a 1-2 finish in the race.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, Sandy and Frassineti had finished eighth in the weekend’s opening race, just 10s behind the winner, despite having served a 15s ‘success penalty’ at their pitstop, a result of the #63 Lamborghini having won the previous race at Mugello. So close was Saturday’s race that fourth-to-eighth places were covered by just 1.117s at the chequered flag.

“It’s been a fantastic weekend’s racing, and to finish with a win is great,” Sandy said. “The victory also means that Andrea goes to the final double-header at Monza next month leading the championship by nine points, so hopefully he can get the job done.”

Sandy returns to British GT Championship duty this weekend (Oct 4/5) when he heads to Donington for the final two-hour race of the season.