Matías Rossi wins in Turismo Nacional at Neuquén
Rain was the main topic of the third racing weekend for TN (National Touring Cars) in Argentina at in the southern regio,n not far from the Andes side in the west of the country.
The whole schedule from Friday to Sunday was held in damp conditions at the 4.319km. Centenario circuit.
There were 40 cars in Class 2 (1.6-litre), and pole position went to championship leader Lucas Mohamed (Volkswagen Gol), with Friday’s session times being faster than Saturday’s. A few hours later, the three heats were run (six laps each) and the winners were Adrián Percaz (Peugeot 207), Maximiliano Fontana (Fiat Palio, a car which is new to this season field and gets some factory support for the FP Team) and Luciano Bosio (Renault Clio).
In Class 3 (2-litre, using 17-inch wheels as of this year), with 42 participants, Matías Rossi was the pole-man once again with his works Citroën C4, with a top speed of almost 210km/h in the wet straight on the Patagonian circuit.
The following day, the category had its three morning heats (also six laps each). Tough battles and plenty of spins and crashes in the races, though Rossi still led from start to finish in the first of them ahead of Pablo Merayo and Juan Pablo Koch (both in Mitsubishi Lancers).
The final race saw more mayhem than usual in this category. A lot of incidents saw too much dirt and mud brought onto the tarmac, which – together with the rain and poor visibility – caused a lot of changes to happen.
Rossi was never really pushed hard by his rivals however, but further down the order fight was tough. Jonathan Castellano (Chevrolet Vectra) overtook Merayo for second as the Kia Cerato of Sebastián Gómez progressed rapidly, contrary to Koch’s Mitsubishi, who was losing ground.
Iván Saturni and Bruno Bosio were pushing for second in their Ford Focus with the factory Peugeot 308 of Mariano Werner. Saturni and Bosio made some risky moves without enough grip, and clashed (Bosio’s left from wheel flying up the fence), which also took out the innocent Werner who was trying to get around them on the outside line.
Five laps from the finish, the pace-car came on track because there were too many cars scattered around in unsafe locations, particularly Roberto Luna’s Kia, which was too heavily damaged after a crash. This led to the stopping of the event with a red flag on lap 18, two less than the original schedule.
Matías Rossi beat two newcomers to the podium, Castellano and Pablo Merayo, and added to his points tally to remain on top of the championship with 100 points. Current champion Facundo Chapur was ninth in his Peugeot 308 and is still second with 76 points, now ahead of Marcelo González (62, Peugeot 307). The winning C4 will tackle the next race with maximum ballast.
Spectators (a strong crowd despite the bad weather) only knew that Class 2 honours would go to Hanna Abdallah (Renault Clio) just a few corners before the finish line. Percaz had started in the lead, but soon Luciano Bosio put his Clio on top, although not far from them them was an intense battle among Abdallah, Fontana, Lucas Bagnera (Renault Clio), Mohamed and Pablo Ortega (Renault Clio).
Percaz and Bosio clashed and Maximiliano Fontana’s Fiat jumped up to first position. It all seemed that the Italian brand’s fans would see one of their cars win after almost 30 years (when Fiat 128s dominated the scene), but Abdallah made a brilliant move, breaking later than Fontana, who was caught unawares and lost victory by half a car length when the chequered flag fell. Juan Martín Eluchans (Renault Clio) completed the podium. By taking fourth place, Mohamed still leads the series with 77 points, 11 more than Guillermo Albertengo (seventh) and 14 more than Bagnera (sixth).
The next round will be at Concordia on May 11th.
