The No. 35 Maserati MC12 capped a strong development week with a fourth-place GT1 finish in the American Le Mans Series race at Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ontario. The Maserati team was quickest in the first practice session, posted a third-place qualifying time close to the class leaders and set the fastest GT1 race lap – all positive signs for the new car in its rookie North American season. The team now hopes for continued progress at the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta in Braselton, on 1st October.

Andrea Bertolini started third on the GT1 grid at Mosport yesterday, and held the position for the first 20 minutes of his stint, before he was passed by one of the dominant Corvette cars. Fabrizio de Simone took over after 55 minutes of racing and Bertolini returned for the final stint after 1 hours and 52 minutes of the race had passed by. He went on to set the fastest class lap late in the race – 1 minute 13.988 seconds on the 2.459-mile road course.
 

Both drivers then maintained fourth in class in the fast-paced caution-free race. The Maserati carried an in-car camera during the Mosport race, with graphics highlighting 1-800-SAL-ARMY, one of the numbers fans can call to support relief efforts in the hurricane-ravaged United States Gulf Coast area. Maserati competes with an MC12 in compliance with the rules of IMSA and matches FIA GT Championship GT1 specifications. The team will not score points in the American Le Mans Series championship.

Andrea Bertolini: "This was the best GT1 race because it was very close racing. It was fun! The problem was the traffic. On this track, if you overtake a car from a slower class in a fast corner, you can lose a lot of time. But I'm happy because the new rear-tire construction is good. I hope this will also be the way for the Petit Le Mans – a very good race for consistency. I'm very confident for Road Atlanta."

Fabrizio de Simone: "Our proper pace without traffic was quite good; it wasn't far from the others. But we lost a lot of time with traffic. I think I found traffic in all the bad points of the track! We still have more work to get better results, but this week was another step. We were quite good in qualifying and we were fast in our race pace."