FERRARI IN ACTION AT SILVERSTONE
The “competition” versions (Challenge and GTC)
of the F430 will be competing this coming weekend at the Silverstone
circuit in England. The F430 Challenge cars will be taking
part in the second round of this season’s European Ferrari
Challenge Pirelli Trophy, while the F430 GTC will be making
their debut in the FIA GT Championship, where they will be
going for a repeat of the clean sweep they achieved over the
past two years, when they took the Drivers, Constructors and
Teams titles, thanks to AF Corse.
More than fifty cars will take part in the English leg of
the Prancing Horse one-make series, representing no less than
twenty three countries. After doing the double in Monza, Austria’s
Philipp Baron (Baron Service) comes to Silverstone as favourite,
thanks to a 14 point lead over Frenchman Ange Barde in the
Pirelli Trophy classification. Heading the Shell Cup is an
Italian driver, in the shape of Walter Forer (Rossocorsa/Pellin,)
ahead of fellow countryman Gianluca Carboni (Kessel) and Englishman
Michael Cantillon (Ferrari GB Dealer Team.)
Ten F430 GTC will line up for the start of the first FIA
GT race, split between six teams. Among the drivers, worthy
of note the presence of reigning champion, Toni Vilander:
the Finn races as part of a pairing with Italy’s Gimmi
Bruni, who finished second in 2007. In fact, Bruni, along
with Robert Bell, won the first race of the LMS series in
a GTC, held at Barcelona back on 6th April. On the same day,
Dirk Mueller and Dominik Farnbacher took victory at St. Petersburg
(USA) in the second round of the ALMS series.
Clearly, the work of the Corse Clienti department moves
on at quite a pace. Apart from the racing activity, there
is also the FXX programme and that linked to the historic
Formula 1 cars, which got underway last weekend in Shanghai,
as part of the second running of the Ferrari Festival, which
saw over sixty Cavallino cars take part in an event aimed
at owners and fans of the marque, in the Far East. Several
FXX cars and three Formula 1 single-seaters were on track,
all part of the past fifteen years of Scuderia history: the
F310, the model Michael Schumacher took to his first Grand
Prix victory for Ferrari back in 1996 and the title winning
F2003-GA and the F2004, which were world champions in 2003
and 2004, as used by Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.
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