italiaspeed.com

A total of six of the new Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 racers were in the thick of the action as the new Blancpain Endurance Series, reserved for GT3 and GT3 cars, took to the Autodromo Nazionale Monza for three hours of racing.

Over the weekend Ferrari was in action at Monza and Vallelunga, where the first races of the new season took place in the Blancpain Endurance Series and the Italian GT championship.

The Autodromo Nazionale in Monza hosted the new endurance championship for coupé cars in the GT3 and GT4 classes. A total of six Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 cars and three F430 GT3 cars entered the three-hour race. Of those the best result went to the F430 entered by Black Bull Swiss Racing, which started the race on pole position after setting a lap of 1.48.233 but ended up with sixth place in a race won by the Porsche of AutoOrlando Sport.

By contrast there were some teething problems for the 458 Italia GT3 cars run by the Vita4One team and driven by the trios of Bartles-Kechele-Verdonk and Hommerson-Machiels-Van Spluteren. Despite the fact that they fought among the leading cars for a large part of the race, they ended up dropping to 13th and 23rd places respectively due to electrical issues.

The day’s work for the 458 Italia GT3 run by the Sofrev team (Policand-Goueslard-Jousse) came to an end in the sand just a few laps from the chequered flag when Policand went off the track. At that point the car had been running in 4th position.

That meant that the first 458 Italia GT3 that made the finish was the one driven by Bobbi-Iaconnelli-Petrobelli (Scuderia Vittoria Limited). They ended up in 8th place despite the fact that a few niggles in qualifying resulted in them starting the race from a lowly 23rd place.

There was a consolation prize for the 458 Italia GT3 prepared by the Piacenza team AF Corse, which had Jack Gerber and Matt Griffin at the wheel. They may only have finished the race in 10th place but Griffin recorded the fastest lap with a time of 1.50.397.

In the first round of the Italian GT Championship, held at Vallelunga’s Autodromo Piero Taruffi, the best result from the competing Ferraris was secured by Matteo Malucelli and Flavio Pierleoni in both rounds. They were at the wheel of the Baldini Mode team’s F430 GTC, which finished second in the GT Cup class behind Sanna-Stancheris (Team Imperiale) in Race 1 and Piccini-Livio (Team Imperiale) in Race 2.

The next round of the Italian GT Championship is scheduled for June 5 at Misano while the Blancpain Endurance Series will return at Navarra on the weekend of May 22.