Challenging weekend for Bartholomew at Mugello

The third round of the Italian GT Sprint Championship took place at Mugello, over the weekend. Mugello is one of Italy’s classic circuits tucked away in the rolling hills of the Tuscany region.

It was clear after Friday practice that the circuit didn’t suit the Lamborghini Huracán Evo 2 as the pairing of Jack Bartholomew and Philippe Denes struggled with pace and car set up.

Qualifying on Saturday morning was disrupted by multiple red flags and coupled with the ongoing issues Bartholomew qualified in P13 for race 1 and Denes in P9 for race 2.

Race one was always going to be a struggle with the start position but also a 15 second success penalty for winning the last round which has to be served at the first pit stop. Bartholomew started from P13 and jumped into P11 but a huge crash on the straight bought out the red flag. After 50 minutes the race restarted with Bartholomew holding position, a small mistake on lap 4 dropped him to P14. On Lap 5 the safety car was deployed for a car stuck in the gravel which bunched up the field for the restart on lap8. Bartholomew jumped up top P12 at the restart then into P11 on the next lap. At the end of Lap 10 the pit window opened, and Bartholomew pitted to change drivers and serve the 15 second success penalty. Teammate Philippe Denes rejoined the race in P13 and moved into P12 at the end of the lap but another safety car on lap 15 bunched the field again. The race resumed on lap 18 with 6 minutes remaining and over the final laps Dens managed to cross the line in P9 overall (P5 in the Pro Class.

Race two on Sunday saw Denes start from P9 moving into P4 on the first lap, he continued to chase after P3 but was struggling for pace. The pit window opened with 28 minutes remaining, but the team elected to leave him out for as long as possible as he was in clean air. The team pitted the car with 19 minutes remaining and Bartholomew rejoined in P5. Still struggling with handling issues he was nudged back to P7 overall at the flag(P6 in the Pro Class).

Jack Bartholomew

“A disappointing weekend to be honest, it’s a track where you need a stable car and we never found the right set up all weekend but on a positive we scored points in both races”.

The final round of the Italian GT Sprint Championship is at Monza on October 5th & 6th.