Niki Cadei and Alvaro Barba Lopez (top) raced to a strong victory in the FIA GT Championship's GT2 class in Portugal while their AF Corse team mates Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander (middle and bottom) lost ground in the title race after finishing in sixth place.

The weekend saw exceptional results for the Ferrari F430 GT, which was a winning protagonist in two new rounds of the FIA GT Championship and the International GT Open, while its sister, the F430 Challenge, was in action in the sixth round of the Ferrari Challenge USA held in Milville at the New Jersey Motorsports Park, on the occasion of the final meeting of the US-American Ferrari Racing Days.

In the sixth round of the FIA GT Championship, held at the Portuguese race track of Portimão, in the Algarve, Niki Cadei and Alvaro Barba Lopez gained victory in the GT2 class: the AF Corse team drivers ended their race after 64 laps, or 300.8 kilometres, ahead of the leaders in the GT2 class championship standings Emmanuel Collard and Richard Westbrook in a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR and the similar BMS Scuderia Italia F430 GT driven by Paolo Ruberti and Matteo Malucelli. Penalised while they were leading the race, Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander only gained sixth place and it means they slip down in the championship standings and are now three points behind Westbrook and Collard in the Drivers' title race. In the Teams' standings AF Corse leads with five points in hand over the second placed team, while Ferrari holds the leadership in the Manufacturers' cup, 43 points ahead of Porsche. The next race will be held at the Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castellet in France on the weekend of 4th October.

Meanwhile at the Magny-Cours circuit the F430s concluded both races of this season’s fifth round in the International GT Open Championship on the podium. At the end of race 1 Marcel Fässler and Joël Camathias, behind the wheel of the Ferrari started by the Trottet Racing Team, crossed the line first, ahead of the two Porsches 911 GT3 RSRs driven by Gianluca Roda/Richard Lietz and Raymond Narac/Patrick Pilet respectively. In the second racem which was dominated by the Porsches of Manuel Giao/Pedro Couceiro and Narac-Pilet/Marco Cioci, Piergiuseppe Perazzini of the Megadrive team gained third place with their Ferrari. The Spanish racing series will start at the Monza race track on the weekend of 4th October for this season’s sixth round.

At the New Jersey Motorsports Park circuit victory in the first race of the US-American Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli went to Mark McKenzie (Ferrari of Houston), followed by Scott Tucker (Boardwalk Ferrari) and Zac Brown (Ferrari of Silicon Valley), while Tucker, the leader of the standings, crossed the line first in race 2, ahead of Henri Richard (Ferrari of Silicon Valley) and Steve Hill (Ferrari of Newport Beach). Amongst the jewels racing in the Shell Historic Challenge in the category for cars with disk brakes, Todd Morici won both races behind the wheel of a 512 BB/LM, ahead of Leigh Keno, driving the same Ferrari model, and Stephen Dudley with a 308 GTB/M. In the races reserved for cars with drum brakes MHP with a Ferrari 250 TR won ahead of Peter Giddins (Maserati 250F) and Jon Shirley (Maserati 300S). The next meeting with the US-American drivers will be held at the Ferrari World Finals in Valencia from 13th to 15th November.