The gloves are not quite off at Sebring, but they’re coming off in a hurry. During the official qualifying session for Saturday’s classic endurance race, the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430GT in the hands of Ralf Kelleners turned in a best lap of 2:03.608 which was good enough for second in the GT2 class, less than a twentieth of a second off pole. The Italian sportscar will be sandwiched on the grid by the two Panoz Esperante GTLMs.

Today had started promisingly for Risi Competizione, the Houston, Texas-based team very keen to build on yesterday’s performance when they set the fastest GT2 practice time during the opening day. A free one hour long practice session kicked off today’s proceedings at 0950 (local time), and the no 62 Ferrari F430GT wound up with the fastest time, a lap of 2:03.867 set at 1047 by Ralf Kelleners during last of the 18 laps the car spent on track. He was just ahead of Mike Rockenfeller in an Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 (2:03.903, 18 laps) and David Brabham in the quicker of the two Panoz Esperante GTLMs (2:03.908, 7 laps).

”The car continues to show a great turn of speed,” commented Chief Engineer Rick Mayer as final set up adjustments for afternoon qualifying were made to the no 62 Ferrari F430GT in the pits. “We are really treating each practice session as another chance to learn more about this new car, and the overall development programme is going exactly to plan. We’re pretty happy with where we are at now and I think we are in pretty good shape,” the veteran race engineer added.

The 25-minute duration official qualifying session which would decide grid positions for Saturday’s 12-hour race was not without its glitches. It kicked off at 1435 and immediately the Risi Competizione F430GT was at the top of the time sheets with Ralf Kelleners posting a quick lap in 2:03.608, two-tenths ahead of Mike Rockenfeller’s AJR Porsche. The Risi Competizione Ferrari F430GT and the two Panoz Esperante GTLM entries have swapped fastest times between them right through the practice sessions at Sebring and today was to be no different as the two US-built sportscars challenged the brand-new red Italian machine for pole right down the flag.
 

There was an interruption during the second half of the session when a Spyker C8 Spider crashed and qualifying had to be halted with around 10 minutes remaining. The Risi Competizione Ferrari had by then left the track for the day as Kelleners had set their fastest lap (2:03.608) very early on. However the Panoz of Scott Maxwell, David Brabham and Sebastien Bordais went out in the second part of the split session to grab the fastest overall time (2:03.563), squeezing the F430GT into second place by just half a tenth of a second. The second Multimac Motorsports Panoz entry, shared by Gunnar Jeanette, Bruno Junquiera and Tom Milner lined up third (2:03.671) with the fastest of the Porsche and BMW runners snapping on the heels of the leading GT2 trio.

“We are pleased with the car’s performance. We’re pleased with the drivers,” says Team Managing Director Giuseppe Risi. “We knew going in that GT2 would be the most competitive class at Sebring and I think the results thus far confirm that. Tonight we have night practice, tomorrow is final preparation for the race, and on Saturday, we race against the best in one of the world’s classic endurance events. What could be better? A great car, a great track and some great competition. We’re delighted to have a Risi Competizione Ferrari back on the race track.”

This evening a mandatory night time practice session takes place which will allow all the drivers to acquaint themselves with the Sebring course in darkness. Tomorrow is a ‘rest’ day allowing the teams to make final preparations for the 54th running of the Annual Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring which gets underway at 1043 (local time) on Saturday 18th March.

Risi Competizione's 2006 American Le Mans Series participation is supported by Lucien Piccard (LP Italy) Stratosphere, Michelin, Putnam Leasing, and Boost-Motorola.