Henrique Chaves had a very positive trip to Monza, where it held the fourth round of the 2020 International GT Open, leaving the historic Italian circuit with an important Drivers’ Standings lead.
On Saturday the Torres Vedras youngster teammate’s, Miguel Ramos, signed the third fastest lap in qualifying and the prospect were good for the seventy-minute race of the afternoon.
The Portuguese pair tried his best to fight for the win, but a ten-second handicap prevent them of that goal, and they ended in fourth, which allow them to clean the handicap for the weekend’s second race.
On Sunday morning Henrique Chaves showed why he is one of the hot properties in the GT world and put the Teo Martín Motorsport’s McLaren 720S GT3 in the pole-position, leaving his closest pursuer more than 0,4s behind. It was a strong show of his intentions for the afternoon race.
The Portuguese started well the race and maintained the lead through his stint and when Miguel Ramos come out of the pits, after the driver change, he had a fifteen-second lead, cruising to the second win of the season.
But with sixteen minutes to the chequered flag, and incident between two cars created a Safety-Car situation, erasing the lead that the Portuguese duo built up. In the restart, Miguel Ramos kept the lead, but afterwards his pursuer got in his tow and passed him.
The Portuguese driver tried to recover but crossed the finish line less than a second from the winner. “We did everything right! I did a perfect lap in qualifying to the pole-position, we were strong in the race, but luck wasn’t in our side, with the Safety-Car situation. Without it, it would be hard to beat us. But this is how motorsport is sometimes”, said Henrique Chaves.
However, even with the Sunday afternoon disappointment, the Portuguese duo add important points to his championship tally and comes out from Monza with an eight-points lead in the Drivers’ Standings. “Our goal is always to win and I believe that today we were the strongest team out there, but this second place is very important to the title battle and we are closer to our aim – to win the championship. We will keep working hard and the luck will be on our side eventually”, Henrique Chaves said.
The next International GT Open round will be held at Spa-Francorchamps, on October 16th – 18th.
