Bonanomi wins Bologna Sprint.

Coloni Motorsport and satellite operation CMS Performance rounded out the 2004 F3000 season on a high with a successful appearance at the annual Bologna Motor Show in Italy on Monday.

The two Italian-based teams were competing in the Trofeo CSAI Formula 3000 Italia, a knock-out style sprint event staged on a specially-designed track in the car parking area within the confines of the show. Despite facing opposition from several crack F3000 teams, home advantage won out, as Coloni beat CMS in the head-to-head finale.

While the teams may have been season F3000 campaigners, the drivers were less experienced, but that did not prevent Marco Bonanomi from defeating Finnish ace Toni Vilander in the run-off. Both drivers have proven the ability in F3 with Coloni, Bonanomi winning races in his homeland in 2003, and Vilander stepping up to the plate with a season that only saw him lose the Italian title on a technicality. Neither had race experience in an F3000 machine before heading to Bologna.

Coloni's other young charge, Alex Ciompi, finished in fourth place after crashing during his semi-final, ceding third place to another promising Italian, Luca Fillipi, who ran with the Astromega team.

"It was a very good day for our team, and it's a good way to end the season with a victory," team principal Paolo Coloni admitted, "The event generated a lot of coverage for us, as it was shown live on Italian television station RAI and there were some important people watching in the crowd."

The success of the Trofeo sprint followed the launch earlier in the day of the new-for-2005 Formula 3000 Italia Championship, in which Coloni is a major driving force. The new series, which hopes to offer F3000 competition on a restricted budget in 2005, will be open to the cars that competed in the now defunct FIA and Superfund Euro F3000 championships. The series organisers are working in conjunction with chassis manufacturer Lola to develop an equivalency formula to ensure that the older cars remain competitive alongside the more sophisticated FIA F3000 machines.