The BMS Scuderia Italia team once again claimed top spot on the podium at the end of the third round of the FIA GT Championship, further increasing their lead in the Championship points table.  

However, Fabrizio Gollin and Luca Cappellari – who crossed the finishing line first in the GT category – were later excluded from the results after their car failed scrutineering. This promoted second place finishers, Matteo Bobbi and Thomas Biagi, to provisionally their third successive win, despite carrying 80kg of weight penalty and having lost time in the pits due to a broken speed limiter. The Care Racing entry of Lilian Bryner, Enzo Calderari and Stefano Livio took points for third place in the revised results.

Gollin and Cappellari’s car 22 had run strongly in the top three throughout the three hour race, and all of the Prodrive-built Ferrari 550 Maranellos had a good race, improving lap by lap. In the last 30 minutes, they were running in 1-2-3 order before Care Racing’s car 21 had a small fuel problem which necessitated a last-minute splash and dash and therefore dropped them down to 4th.  

Conscious of the fact that the many high kerbs did not suit the Ferraris, and that their success in the first two rounds had resulted in heavy weight penalties for cars 22 and 23, the team had opted for a conservative race strategy. They were therefore more than happy with the result, until the cars underwent scrutineering and the winning car was deemed to have a faulty airbox. BMS Scuderia Italia have appealed the decision of the stewards and, after examining the telemetry data, believe they have a strong case. The data showed that car 22 did not benefit from any performance advantage during the race in terms of acceleration and top speed, and that a component within the airbox, weakened by vibrations and high G-force levels throughout the race, failed when stall-tested by the scrutineers after the race.

The attention of the team now turns to the next round at Brno in the Czech Republic on 25th May. Despite having to carry 100Kg of weight, which Thomas Biagi compared to “like having another person in the car”, both he and his team-mate Bobbi will be aiming to extend their Championship lead. Gollin and Cappellari will be determined to avenge their Sicilian misfortunes, and the Swiss-Italian Care Racing trio will be pushing hard to claim their first win.