{"id":1474,"date":"2026-05-22T18:21:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2026-05-22T18:21:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:21:39","slug":"cairoli-commands-the-coast-ferrari-sweeps-interrupted-friday-practice-at-zandvoort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/cairoli-commands-the-coast-ferrari-sweeps-interrupted-friday-practice-at-zandvoort\/","title":{"rendered":"Cairoli Commands the Coast: Ferrari Sweeps Interrupted Friday Practice at Zandvoort"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands<\/strong> \u2014 Matteo Cairoli and Emil Frey Racing laid down a massive marker on the opening day of the second 2026 DTM round, dominating the timesheets under intense sunshine at Circuit Zandvoort. The Italian series newcomer showed an immediate affinity for the punishing, undulating Dutch dunes, topping both free practice sessions and cementing himself as the definitive driver to beat heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After securing the top spot in the morning, Cairoli returned in the afternoon to fire in a blistering 1:33.803. He was the only driver to break beneath the 1:34 barrier all day, proving that the Ferrari 296 GT3 has found an ideal mechanical sweet spot following a quieter season opener at the Red Bull Ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Flags Fracture the Afternoon Rhythm<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second free practice session quickly descended into a heavily fractured affair, with two separate red flags completely disrupting the competitive flow of the afternoon. Following an initial scheduling delay required to clean up the track after a support series outing, the field headed out onto the circuit under intense 25\u00b0C heat. Teams were highly eager to capture critical data on the behavioral traits and thermal degradation of Pirelli\u2019s new evolution compound across longer stints. However, just as drivers began to push beyond basic exploratory installation checks and settle into a meaningful rhythm, the marshals were forced to throw the first red flag. This stoppage instantly neutralized the track action and forced the field back to the pit lane, taking a massive bite out of the critical preparation time required to understand tire management through Zandvoort\u2019s punishing, high-load banked corners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late-Session Chaos Starves Grid of Qualifying Sims<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The resumption of the session offered only a fleeting reprieve for the engineering crews before structural chaos returned to ruin their performance programs within the final twenty minutes of the hour. A second red flag was waved at an incredibly sensitive moment, catching out a vast majority of frontrunners who had just bolted on fresh rubber to unleash their low-fuel qualifying simulations. The back-to-back interruptions caused massive operational headaches across the pit lane, severely limiting team exposure to single-lap limits ahead of Saturday’s official grid-setting morning shootout. By the time the track finally went green for a frantic remaining sprint, the data programs for the majority of the grid were in tatters, leaving many teams entirely blind regarding absolute peak performance on fresh rubber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garage Triumphs and Turning Points<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While the successive disruptions left most teams entirely blind regarding their absolute threshold, the time spent stationary did offer an unexpected window of survival for certain entries. Most notably, the Red Bull Team ABT mechanics were able to maximize the extended down-time to rectify complex mechanical gremlins on Marco Mapelli’s new Lamborghini Temerario GT3, pulling off a rapid component-swap against the clock to ensure he could return for the final green-flag scramble. This structural recovery mirrored a broader trend of optimism for the Italian manufacturer; after a bruising opening weekend in Austria, the Temerario GT3 showed a massive step forward in balance, with Mirko Bortolotti guiding his TGI Team by GRT machine to a strong fourth overall on the combined sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RESULTS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands \u2014 Matteo Cairoli and Emil Frey Racing laid down a massive marker on the opening day of the second 2026 DTM round, dominating the timesheets under intense sunshine at Circuit Zandvoort. The Italian series newcomer showed an immediate affinity for the punishing, undulating Dutch dunes, topping both free practice sessions and cementing himself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dtm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions\/1478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}