It was announced today that Italian team GPC Giesse Squadra Corse will be entering two Ferrari 575 GTC race cars in the 2005 FIA GT Championship. The cars will be supported by Pirelli.

The first Ferrari will be driven by long-time partnership Jean-Denis Deletraz and Andrea Piccini. The duo return to Ferrari after two years with Lister and Lamborghini.

The Italo-Swiss pair raced for BMS Scuderia Italia in 2002, and were the first to give the Italian team a win with the Prodrive-built Ferrari 550, climbing to the top of the podium four times that year, and fighting for the title.

GPC Giesse Squadra Corse is a relatively new team, which only came into being in early 2004, the result of a split away from JMB Racing. Owned by Gian Paolo Coppi, the team had an extremely successful first season, finishing in second place in the GT Teams classification behind BMS, and third in N-GT behind the two Freisinger teams.
 

The new team scored two wins in the N-GT class, and a fine second place at the Proximus 24 Hours of Spa, when they battled for the lead with BMS for almost the entire race.

The team's two Ferrari 575 GTC cars are likely to be the only ones of this kind on the 2005 grid, as JMB Racing will campaign their similar cars this year in the Le Mans Endurance Series, and they will make a most welcome addition to the exciting FA GT Championship grid which is now quickly falling into place as the involved team's make their announcements.   

The drivers for the second GPC Squadra Corse Ferrari 575 GTC will be announced in the near future.