Ferrari newsletter 2009-09-21

F430 wins in France and Portugal

Maranello (Modena), 21st September 2009 -- A weekend with exceptional results for the F430s, protagonists in two new rounds of the FIA GT Championship and the International GT Open as well as 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 Portimao at 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 standings Emmanuel Collard and Richard Westbrook with Porsche 997 and the BMS Scuderia Italia's F430 driven by Paolo Ruberti and Matteo Malucelli. Penalised by a neutralisation while they were leading the race, Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander only gained sixth place and are now three points behind Westbrook-Collard in the drivers' standings. In the team standings AF Corse leads with five points ahead of the second placed team, while Ferrari holds the leadership in its class, 43 points ahead of Porsche.

The next race will be held at the French Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet on the weekend of 4th October.

At the Magny-Cours circuit the F430s concluded both races of this season's fifth round in the International GT Open Championships on the podium. At the end of race 1 Marcel Fassler and Joel Camathias, behind the wheel of the Ferrari started by the Trottet Racing Team, crossed the line first, ahead of the two Porsches 997 driven by Gianluca Roda-Richard Lietz and Raymond Narac-Patrick Pilet respectively. In the second race - dominated by the Porsches with Manuel Giao-Pedro Couceiro and Narac-Pilet - Marco Cioci and Piergiuseppe Perazzini from Megadrive 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 race.

On 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, 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, amongst 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 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

-credit: ferrari