The twentieth running of
the Vallelunga 6 Hours, the endurance race that has
become a classic end of season sports car event in
Italy, finished in the pouring rain and with the victory
being claimed by the honours-laden Ferrari F430 GT as it
makes its swansong: next year it will be replaced in the
GT2 category by the 458 Italia.
No less than fifty four
cars took the start and heading them home in the Gold
Cup for GT cars was one of the four F430s entered by the
AF Corse team, in the hands of Luca Rangoni, Alessandro
Garofano and Marco Mapelli. They finished ahead of
another Maranello machine, this one a Kessel Racing
entered car, crewed by
Michael Broniszewski and Philipp Peter, while third
place went to the Porsche
997 GT3 driven by Stefano Borghi, Gianluca De Lorenzi
and Rino Mastronardi.
Twelfth place overall, eleventh in
class, was the result awaiting two competitors from
the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli – Giorgio Sernagiotto and Stefano Gai – at the wheel of another of
the AF Corse team run by Amato Ferrari, teamed with
expert driver Emanuele Pirro, on his maiden drive in a
Prancing Horse car. Having started from eighth on the
grid, the trio managed to climb as high as third, before
dropping down the order when the radiator split in the
fifth hour, when Gai was driving.
There was not much luck
for Giancarlo Fisichella over the weekend, the former F1
driver was on board AF Corse’s
Ferrari no. 5, alongside Marco Cioci and Piergiuseppe
Perazzini. Despite their qualifying being compromised by
a prolonged visit to the pits after an off-track
excursion from Perazzini, a fantastic performance from
the Roman driver behind the wheel and some clever team work saw the car move
up from eleventh to take the lead. Then, with only
twenty minutes remaining, Fisichella went off at the Cimini corner and suffered a bruised knee,
meaning the car dropped down to
eighth place at the finish.
