Following their excellent season in the first year of the Brazil GT3 Championship, the two leading pilots of the CRT Brazil Team, Claudio Ricci and Rafael Derani, have been invited by Kessel Racing to the European pre-season testing of the Italian GT3 Championship that will take place in February. Ricci, who was fourth in the final classification of the championship and the fastest pilot of the season (six fastest laps over the ten rounds), and Derani (who finished in seventh place), will test a Ferrari F430 from Kessel Racing, a car which is identical to the one that disputed the championship this year.

The Kessel Racing team which is led by Pier Del Don, claimed the Italian GT3B Driver's Championship title with Marco Coldani (who formed a crew with the former Formula 1 pilot Ivan Capelli) and also gained the team’s trophy in the Italian GT3 championship.

Pier recently had the opportunity to go to Brazil for the rounds of the inaugural Brazilian GT3 Championship held in the cities of Curitiba and the last one of the season in São Paulo that was disputed at the national Formula 1 circuit, Interlagos. In the pits of CRT team that contested the championship with the Italian Ferrari F430, Pier was able to evaluate the high level of the competition and also the pilots. "Ricci impressed me a lot for his speed, he could be compared to the best GT3 pilots racing in Italy, and Derani is a young talent who has demonstrated a great potential in his first season," said Pier.

The two pilots, who have already signed new contracts for the next season with the CRT Team, are going to Seville in Spain in February, for three days of testing following the calendar of GT3 Italian's pre-season. Ricci demonstrated excitement with the invitation. "That is the result of the very good work that we did, I hope to learn as much as possible in this period of testing which will be very important for us to start the next season with total strength to dispute of the title in 2008."

by Claudio Perlini