Zamparelli escapes pile-up to win opening Monza race

Redline Racing's Dino Zamparelli has increased his lead at the top of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB championship after winning an incident packed opening race at Monza.

Zamparelli started the race from third position but profited from the dramatic opening corner pile-up which eliminated both front-row starting JTR runners Dan Harper and Lewis Plato from the race.

Right from the off, Harper's maiden pole position joy turned into despair after a slow start immediately dropped the JTR driver down to third on the approach to turn one.

As Plato led the field into the braking zone for the 1st gear chicane, Harper - while looking to regain second place from Zamparelli - locked the rear wheels of his 991 GT3 Cup car and subsequently spun across the apex of the first corner, taking his JTR stablemate Plato out of the race in the process.

That inevitably triggered a multi-car pile-up, which meant the safety car made an early appearance until lap 4 of the race as the marshals cleared the wreckage from turn one.

Once the race was restarted, George Gamble and Tio Ellinas - sitting second and third at the time - piled the pressure on race leader Zamparelli throughout the mid-part of the race.

However, having weathered the storm, Zamparelli gradually stretched his lead ahead of Gamble, who was coming under increasing pressure from Slidesport Engineering's Ellinas in third.

Despite a valiant effort, Ellinas eventually broke through Gamble's defence after the latter of the duo locked up and wide during the final corner, handing the former second position on a plate.

Tom Wrigley also benefited from Gamble's late race error and secured his step on the podium in third. Both Ellinas and Wrigley finished over 3.7s behind runaway winner Zamparelli.

Gamble managed to hang on to fourth, ahead of Seb Perez, who took a comfortable Pro-Am victory in fifth position. Esmee Hawkey scored her best finish of the year in sixth, also taking second place in Pro-Am category ahead of Motorbase Performance's Dan Vaughn in seventh.

Greg Caton was eighth aboard his IN2 Racing prepared Porsche, while Peter Kyle-Henney took the Am class win ahead of Ian Dockerill, both Am runners completing the top-ten in ninth and tenth overall.