In the
year of its debut in the GrandAm series, the Ferrari 458
Italia has quickly turned itself into a major player in
the competitive American sports car championship.
Last weekend at the Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca in
Monterey, the AIM team and its drivers Jeff Segal and
Emil Assentato indeed managed to win both the drivers’
title and the teams’ competition with one race
remaining. That performance has helped extend Ferrari’s
advantage in the constructors’ classification, which has
the Maranello company in the lead, 12 points ahead of
Chevrolet.
Thanks to their success in reaching the second step on
the podium in Sunday’s race, Segal and Assentato became
mathematically uncatchable for their opponents, securing
a deserved result for Ferrari and its Corse Clienti
department.
There was another fine performance for the Ferrari 458
run by Scuderia Corse and driven by the debutant
Alessandro Balzan, who shared the cockpit with a real
veteran of endurance racing, Olivier Beretta. Having
started in pole position, the team made the finish in
fourth place in their class and 14th overall,
nonetheless finishing on the same lap as the winners.
The final date in the calendar, which will be decisive
for the constructors’ title, will take place at Lime
Rock on September 29.
