National tourism is defined: the candidates for the title did not shine on their first day in Rosario

The National tourism began its definition in Rosario with four candidates for the title: Jonatan Castellano, Carlos Javier Merlo, Leonel Pernia Y Girolamo Teti. However, it wasn’t them that stood out on the first day of business in the Juan Manuel Fangio Circuit.

While Julian Santero dominated the first start on the track, with a time of 1:45.993, in the afternoon it was the turn of Giovanni Battista De Benedictis to finish at the top of the leaderboard. On board the Toyota Corolla, the driver from Necochán nailed the clock in 1:45.043, improving the record of the reigning champion – who finished third in the second round – and relegating Lucas Vicino by 117 thousandths of a second.

The high temperature dominated the first day of the 12th round of the championship, with 35°C rising to 55° inside the cars and 62° on the main stretch of the Rosario stage.

Despite this, the competitiveness of the category has been maintained from the outset. So much so that during the morning workouts there were some 19 cars stuck within a second of each other. And Santero, of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Argentina team, beat Gastón Iansa, at the controls of the Ford Focus of the Crucianelli GC Competición team, by just nine thousandths of a second.

De Benedictis, a member of the Arana Ingeniería Sport team, improved Santero’s record and relegated him to third place in the second race, just one place behind Leonel Pernia, the best performer among the riders fighting for the title. Merlo had a worse timewhich in the first tests generated the red flag due to problems with the direction of his Corolla.

Iansa, who maintained the level shown in the first practice sessions, finished fifth at 335 thousandths, ahead of Nazareno Beguiristain, Facundo Chapur, Germán Todino, Matías Muñoz Marchesi and Mauricio Lambiris, all in the first ten times of the lot.

For Class 3, the next track activity will take place on Saturday at 11am, when the classification will be played out to form the starting grids for the qualifying series on Sunday, starting at 09:35am. The broadcast will start at 10 on DeporTV.

Renzo Blotta, the best in class 2

The group Tito Bessone Toyota Corse started the final round of Class 2 by dominating the training and standings with Renzo Blotta located in front of the 38 registered drivers.

First there was a scare. The first batch was suspended for several minutes for a supervision and subsequent coup by Marcelo Guevara in the curvón, which forced the interruption of the practice and the transfer of the native rider from Daireaux to the Laprida Sanatorium for further checks.

Renzo Blotta finally maintained the best time after setting a time of 1.47:726 at first contact, beating his teammate Alex Conci by 0.970, while champion Matías Cravero placed 25th.

In the second session, Blotta clocked 1m47s837s and hinted that it wouldn’t be difficult for him to be the best on Friday, which he confirmed in qualifying.

Although he failed to improve his times, the number 15 Etios driver took pole position with a time of 1:48.024, 265 thousandths faster than Alejo Borgiani and 392 faster than Juan Ignacio Canela.