STOCK CAR: DI GRASSI WINS 3rd OF THE YEAR IN CASCAVEL

Once again, teamwork was decisive in a Stock Car race. This Sunday (9), Hero Motorsport and Lucas Di Grassi designed a specific strategy for the first race of the double round of the eighth stage of the Brazilian Stock Car Championship, held at the Zilmar Beux International Autodrome, in Cascavel (PR). With a very well-prepared car, Di Grassi was left on the track, but he “charged up” his chances of victory in the opening race of the round by choosing not to refuel during the pit stop. The strategy made it possible to overcome the then leader Felipe Fraga while still in the pits – a job that Di Grassi then completed, imposing a very strong pace, which was not followed by any of the competitors. Lucas ended the race with an expressive eleven-second advantage over the runner-up.

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“It was a fantastic victory also because I walked this track for the first time the day before yesterday. So I think our team worked really well on this adaptation. Our car was very fast and I'm sure that if we hadn't overtaken in the box, it would have happened anyway in the following laps", commented the Hero Motorsport driver, who had already won races in the other stages of Paraná in 2018, in Curitiba and Londrina.

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“But the strategy was already agreed and calculated by the team for this first race, so the team followed it impeccably. The idea was to keep me as close as possible to Fraga in the first part of the race, to try to surprise him by not refueling – and with that to gain a few seconds, enough for overtaking. I have to thank the Hero team for the great pit stop today. This was my third win this year, I'm very happy. The car was great and everything worked as the team had planned, in an impeccable way”, summed up Di Grassi.

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Lucas started in second and followed the team's guidelines by always walking close to pole Felipe Fraga in the first half of the race. With the opening of the pit stop window, the Hero Motorsport team remained faithful to the plan outlined for the race and chose not to refuel the car, just changing the tires on the right side - the most worn in Cascavel, which has the most of the curves to the left. Fraga, however, made a complete pit stop, also refueling his car. And he was surprised by the speed with which Lucas returned to the track.

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However, in the second race, which the top ten on the grid in an inverted position, Di Grassi soon retired in the first turn: “It was a shame. I aggressively dropped from the outside and picked up a dirty patch. The car lost grip and went straight through. With that practically the entire grid passed me and the team thought it was better to abandon it, because we would have a long pit stop and, despite the good speed we had, it would be difficult to recover. So we thought it best to save the car and tires for the next step. The important thing is that we left here with another victory. This was really sensational”, summarized Di Grassi.

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The next Stock Car stage will be played on September 23, at the Velo Città circuit, in the interior of São Paulo. Check the results of the eighth stage:

Result of Race 1:
1. 11 Lucas Di Grassi (Hero Motorsport) – 39 laps in 42min01s287
2. 88 Felipe Fraga (Cimed Chevrolet Racing) – at 10s595
3. 80 Marcos Gomes (Cimed Chevrolet Racing Team) – 12s928
4. 4 Julio Campos (Prati-Donaduzzi Racing) – at 14s315
5. 83 Gabriel Casagrande (Vogel Motorsport) – at 15s271
6. 0 Cacá Bueno (Cimed Chevrolet Racing) – at 21s607
7. 111 Rubens Barrichello (Full Time Sports) - at 25s166
8. 21 Thiago Camilo (Ipiranga Racing) - at 25s362
9. 12 Lucas Foresti (Cimed Chevrolet Racing Team) – at 25s523
10. 8 Rafael Suzuki (Bardahl Hot Car) – at 30s322