Porsche Cup: The junior consolidates his position 🎥

The most prominent starter in Imola was Dominique Aegerter, who took part in the Porsche Experience and could rely on professional Fredy Barth as his coach. The motorcycle supersport world champion describes his experience of the Porsche weekend in the video.

Kapfinger makes short work of it
In the GT3 Cup sprint race on the Imola GP circuit, Johannes Kapfinger restored the usual order as early as the first of 14 laps. The Porsche Motorsport Club Suisse and Porsche Schweiz AG protégé passed Pietro Armanni and took the lead. The Italian had previously beaten the 20-year-old from Passau by 0.145 seconds in qualifying and started from pole position.

Armanni, who usually competes in the Porsche Carrera Cup Italy, also set the fastest lap in the race. Nevertheless, in the end he was 0.613 seconds behind Kapfinger. Third place went unchallenged to Gregor Burkard (podium top gallery right). The other places were taken by Gianluca Giorgi, Alexander Schwarzer and Marc Arn.

Revenge of the local hero
In the 70-minute endurance race, Armanni (top left gallery) then turned the tables - although the pole setter initially lost ground to Kapfinger (top center gallery) at the start. Over the next 13 laps, however, he steadily crept closer, again setting the fastest race lap and passing him on lap 17 thanks to his later mandatory pit stop.

At the same time, Gregor Burkard and Marc Arn also turned off for a tire change. Both returned to the track ahead of Kapfinger, who had driven up to his team in the 14th lap. While Burkard defended his second place to the finish, Arn had to yield to the German on lap 25. In the end, he finished fourth ahead of Alexander Schwarzer, Roderick Christie and Thomas Brauch.

Kapfinger learns from mistakes
The second sponsored driver of the Porsche Motorsport Club Suisse and Porsche Schweiz AG, Jocelyn Langer, finished 14th in the sprint race and twelfth in the Endurance competition in the GT3 Cup classification.

Johannes Kapfinger: "The Sprint race went very well, I was able to keep up with Pietro Armanni and just about secure victory. In the Endurance we tried something new with an early pit stop, but then the safety car went out for us at the wrong moment - as a result I lost a lot of places. But you learn from mistakes. Overall, it was a good weekend because we were able to show that we're fast."

GT4 victories to Lietzau and Mottet
In the group of different racing versions of the Porsche Cayman, Markus Lietzau continued in Imola where he had left off in the sprint race in Le Castellet: with a victory. At the wheel of his 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport (lower gallery, left), the German also prevailed over his compatriot Gero Bauknecht in the only higher horsepower GT4 RS from Class 10. Alexandre Mottet took second place in Class 11 in third place ahead of Patrick Schetty and Detlef Schmidt.

In the Endurance race, Alexandre Mottet also took overall GT4 victory after clinching pole position. At the finish, only 0.288 seconds separated him from his pursuers Markus Lietzau and Florian Strauss.

Enzo Calderari can still do it
In the Group Open GT sprint, a Swiss racing legend took the top step of the podium: Enzo Calderari from Biel narrowly beat Michael Kapfinger in a Porsche 911 GT3 R (lower gallery, center). Johannes' twin brother secured the class win in the 911 GT3 Cup cars with racing ABS and traction control.

Overall victory in the Endurance race went to the German duo of Jörg Dreisow and Manuel Lauck (lower gallery, right) just ahead of Michael Kapfinger/Dieter Svepes and Class 1 winner Armanni.

It also works without tools
In Imola, veteran Peter Meister showed that extremely consistent lap times are also possible without electronic aids. The veteran won the short version of the Porsche Drivers Competition Suisse over five timed laps in his Porsche 911 GT3 RS - the added deviations from his own average time added up to just 0.58 seconds. Second place in the Classic classification went to Tommy Eriksson ahead of Manfred Cathomas and Jens Puhlfürst.

The longer competition over eight scored laps was won by Pascal Godel with a time difference of 0.68 seconds ahead of Eriksson and Thomas Bolliger. In the Chrono classification, Nicolas Garski took first place twice ahead of Virgil Keller and Fide Scheer. His cumulative time differences were once 1.44 and once 0.28 seconds.

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