Risi Ferrari had winning Sebring potential, says Serra

The only Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo in the GTD Pro category in the second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finished a distant ninth in class in the hands of Serra, Davide Rigon and team newcomer Eddie Cheever III.

Brazilian driver Serra had narrowly outpaced TR3 Racing Lamborghini rival Mirko Bortolotti to claim pole by just 0.017s, and spent the opening hour of the race dicing with the Italian driver for the lead.

Both cars fell behind Corvette Racing's solo C8.R after the opening round of stops, but the Risi Ferrari remained firmly in the hunt until the third hour, when the car had to be taken behind the wall with power steering issues that left the team eight laps down.

Subsequent caution periods allowed the team to recover some of the lost laps, but in the end the Ferrari wound up five laps behind the winning Corvette.

“It was a difficult race," said Serra. "I think we had the team and the car to be fighting for a victory, but we had the power steering problem and because of that we were almost eight laps down. We were able to recover four laps.

"I think we had good moments during the weekend. I think we learned a lot about the car and everything. It was nice to work with Davide, Eddie and all the Risi team and I’m looking forward to the next one.”

Rigon added: "I’m very disappointed because of the issue we had at the beginning of the race. After that it was all very good with the team. They did a great job, not one mistake and the pitstops were perfect.

"We just had that issue on the power steering when Eddie was driving and we lost a lot of laps and we were able to recover four laps, but the last four it was difficult to recover. I think we had the chance to be on the podium. The speed of the car was very good."

Ferrari enjoyed better fortune in the Pro-am GTD category as the Cetilar Racing entry driven by Giorgio Sernagiotto, Roberto Lacorte and Antonio Fuoco prevailed to give the Italian team its first IMSA win.

 

That was after Fuoco, who had been in action the previous day as part of Ferrari's FIA World Endurance Championship factory team, passed the Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen to reclaim the class lead in the penultimate hour.

“I think it was a really tough race," reflected Fuoco. "From the beginning we had a small contact. It was hard but I think the guys did an amazing job on the car, tape everywhere, and the car was working really well.

"We had really good pace, even Roberto and Giorgio did an amazing job, and I just finished the job so I’m really happy, and I would like to thank the team for their amazing job.”

Ferrari managed to get two cars on the podium in GTD as the AF Corse entry shared by Toni Vilander, Simon Mann and Luis Perez Companc came through to finish third in class.