Behind the wheel of a Ferrari F430 GT Michele Bartyan at the weekend scooped the inaugural International GT Open title, while at the same time clinching the Spanish GT Championship crown. The dual titles came thanks to the victories he achieved together with Alessandro Pierguidi at the Barcelona racetrack.

The list of successes scored by cars developed by the Corse Clienti department at Maranello gets longer by the day. Immediately in its first season of international GT2 racing the F430GT was able to prove successful in the Italian and British GT Championships, in addition to the American Le Mans Series, where Risi Competizione won the Teams' title with five wins in ten races. Meanwhile, in the FIA GT series (with its last race of the season set to take place this weekend) the car has powered Ferrari to the Constructors' title. In the FIA GT2 category the AF Corse team and their brace of F430 GTs have also wrapped up the Teams' title.

International GT Open

26-year old Italian driver Michele Bartyan driving the Playteam SaraFree Ferrari F430GT, achieved, together with his team mate Alessandro Pier Guidi, a perfect day in the single two-hour long final race of the championship, clinching a superb victory and scoring the maximum available of points (44). This allowed Bartyan to overturn the situation in the overall standings and overtake José Manuel Pérez Aicart and Lucas Guerrero, who arrived in Barcelona as leaders of the championship. Over 35,000 fans flocked to the Circuit de Catalunya in a beautiful autumn day which saw 62 cars taking the start. It was a sad and difficult day for the two young Spaniards, who could not crown their dream after a fantastic season. The GTA Mosler was not in best shape on Sunday and had a high handicap in this last race (50”). Unfortunately, a drive-through for excessive speed in the pit lane dashed their last hopes of a good result. The third title contender, Paolo Ruberti (Edil Cris Ferrari F430GT) was never in a position to fight for the title as the team's strategy of stopping for the refuel during the first pace-car period revealed itself ill-advised.

Michele Bartyan was, of course, elated after the race that gave the 2005 Le Mans Series GT1 class champion his second major international racing title: “I am absolutely delighted, especially for the whole team who has worked so hard. It has been a very stressful season until the end, as we lost our initial advantage during the year, but today everything went perfectly!" The Ferrari of Mediani-Pasini (Victory Engineering) took second place ahead of the Autorlando Porsche GT3 of Gianluca Roda and Johnny Mowlem. Pedro Nevoa and Fred Van Putten imposed their Marcos Mantis in GTB, just ahead of the Ferrari 360 Challenge of ever-young Alessandro Nannini and Gianni Giudici and the Ferrari 430 Challenge of the Rodrigo brothers. With a fifth place, Fabrizio Gini (Ferrari 360 Giudici) secured definitely the GTB Cup.
 

The 2006 racing season saw the launch of a new international series for GT racing cars: the International GT Open Championship, which firmly aimed at reviving what has been the spirit of GT races throughout the history of motor sports: a competition which is open to all GT cars, appealing to professional and gentlemen drivers alike, with simple and stable technical rules, ensuring action-packed races. Six events, contested on circuits among the most selective and prestigious in Europe, composed the calendar for the maiden season. In total, twelve one-hour duration races were broadcasted live by the Eurosport TV channel. Four out of the six events were paired with the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) ensuring the new series had enhanced visibility and exposure.

Thirty car strong grids competed in the International GT Open, which kicked off unofficially on 21-22 March with a two-day pre-championship test session at Monza, where the first official event of the new series, the Italian GT Open round, took place on 1st and 2nd April 2006. Replicating what is usual terminology in golf and tennis, each event was labelled as the national 'Open' of the country where it took place, underlining the specific character of the event, which is complementary to existing national GT series. The International GT Open series, sanctioned by the FIA, was organised this year by GT Sport, the well-known Madrid-based sports promotion company, and it built up on the experience and the success of the Spanish GT Championship, created in 1998 by the former GT and Sportscar driver Jesús Pareja.

The race format was made up of two races (of 60 minutes or 200 km maximum each) per event, with a flying start. One event (the Catalonian GT Open) will have double duration and give double points. The news series featured a unique handicap system based on time. The “penalty” was added up to the compulsory time the car had to spend in the pit lane at the moment of the driver change. The handicap applied to the three first classified in the previous race and consisted of 20, 15 and 10 seconds respectively. The handicaps were cumulative up to a maximum of 45 seconds.  They were withdrawn whenever the car ends a race below the third position (highest handicap is the first to be dropped).

The GT Open series was split into two main classes, GTA and GTB with its technical regulations being similar to the ones already in force in the Spanish GT Championship. The GTA class was eligible to all vehicles of the GT2 category homologated by FIA with a minimum weight is 1,100 kg; while GTB cars are eligible to all vehicles of the GT3 category homologated by FIA and all vehicles coming from a GT cup, trophy or international mono-brand challenge. In this class the minimum weight is 1,150 kg. Dunlop supplied a control tyre with each car having three sets of tyres allocated for the weekend.

International GT Open Championship, final points standings: 1. Bartyan, 168 pts; 2. Aicart/Guerrero, 160; 4. Pier Guidi, 148; 5. Ruberti, 126; 6. Roda, 100; 7. Mowlem, 90; 8. Giao, 84; 9. Gini, 71; 10. Belicchi-Zonca, 69.