Double FIA N-GT Champion Stéphane Ortelli and last year's race winner Timo Scheider will be joining current GT2 Championship leading team AF Corse for the forthcoming Proximus 24 Hours of Spa, making up a very powerful line-up in the Italian team's pair of Ferrari F430GTs, alongside the regular drivers of Rui Aguas, Matteo Bobbi, Jaime Melo and Mika Salo. 

"I am looking forward to a new challenge," Ortelli commented on the announcement. The highly experienced racing driver is a rare sight at the wheel of a Ferrari as the Monaco-based pilot is normally associated Porsche cars in the FIA GT Championship, particularly so as he won both his N-GT class (now GT2) titles with the German brand. However, he raced the GT1 class Russian Age Racing Aston Martin DBR9 in Dubai last year and he has gathered up plenty of racing variety this season having competed in a Porsche during the Daytona 24 Hours, a Saleen S7-R in the Spa-Francorchamps 1000kms, part of the Le Mans Series (LMS), where he won the GT1 category, and also an Aston Martin DBR9 at Le Mans.

Ortelli will join Italian Matteo Bobbi and Brazilian Jaime Melo in the #58 AF Corse Ferrari F430GT, while Timo Scheider, who won the 24 Hours of Spa last year in a Team Vitaphone Maserati MC12, will join Finn Mika Salo and Portuguese Rui Aguas in the #59 entry. Melo and Salo are further boosted as they won the GT2 class in the inaugural American Le Mans Series Utah Grand Prix yesterday, driving the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430GT, and in the process handing the Maranello sportscar maker its first ALMS victory since 2004.
 

The Proximus 24 Hours of Spa, which will be round 4 of the 2006 FIA GT Championship, actually got underway at Spa-Francorchamps earlier this month with a well-attended press conference and a very busy test day. Stephane Ratel, chairman of SRO, the promoter of the FIA GT Championship, introduced the provisional entry list for this year's race.  The two testing sessions took place mainly in good weather, although a couple of extremely heavy showers did disturb proceedings. The best time overall was set by  Thomas Biagi in the #2 Vitaphone Maserati MC 12, with a lap of 2:17.207.

The two sessions, as well as giving a number of third and fourth drivers taking part in the event a chance to try their new cars on the famous Belgian circuit, also saw some series newcomers out on the track, including the Duller Motorsport BMW Z4 Coupe, and the newly launched Porsche 997 GT2. In the AM session the AF Corse cars were second and third fastest in the GT2 class, with the #59 F430GT (2:24.659) just pipping its sister #58 car (2:26.079). The best GT2 time was posted by the #79 Ebimotors Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (2:24.366). In the second session AF Corse posted its intent to aim for victory at Spa, the #59 car setting the fastest GT2 time (2:24.245) with the #58 fourth quickest (2:24.835).