27.03.2004 BMS SCUDERIA ITALIA DELIGHTED TO START THE SEASON BY SECURING THE FRONT ROW IN MONZA

BMS Scuderia Italia achieved the perfect start to its 2004 FIA GT campaign by clinching the front row of the grid for tomorrow’s race.

Fabrizio Gollin secured pole position in his Care Racing supported Ferrari 550 Maranello with a time of 1m 43.509, just two tenths of a second ahead of team mate Matteo Bobbi’s best time of 1m 43.789.

The Italian team’s performance was backed up by Care Racing’s strong 4^th position in qualifying. Stefano Livio, driving at his ‘home’ circuit, set a fastest time of 1m 44.680 to secure the second row of the grid alongside the Saleen of Alzen and Bartels. 

All the drivers under BMS’ management were full of praise for the quality of the Prodrive built cars, the consistency and excellence of the Michelin tyres and, above all, the extremely high level of preparation and operation by the Brescia-based BMS team.

BMS car no. 1 - Matteo Bobbi: “Yesterday was not so good for me and this morning’s session was very bad. I overtook a car (a JMB Ferrari), it moved over, we touched, I spun at the Parabolica and ended up in the gravel trap! I had to sit and watch all the others qualifying.

"I had two new sets of tyres to use this afternoon so was fairly confident of doing a good time and set it quite early on. I thought that Fabrizio would be very fast here as I don’t really like the Monza track. It is a great result for the team, having first and second.”

BMS car no. 2 – Fabrizio Gollin: “I had a very good lap, very good car, very good tyres, very good team. The track was reasonably dry this morning but it would have been stupid to push any harder than I did in those conditions. I was sure the track would improve this afternoon which it did for everyone.

"I think our Michelin tyres are definitely better than last year but we don’t know what the competition will really be like until tomorrow’s race. The car is very good and consistent and Gabriele and I did some long runs so we are looking forward to tomorrow.”

Care Racing car no. 3 – Stefano Livio: “We have equalled our qualifying position to last year’s race and I am very happy as I like Monza a lot. We are happy with the set up of our car and are, of course, hoping to at least equal if not improve on our finishing position last year (2^nd).”