10 January 2017
Maranello, 10 January 2017 - Ferrari customer teams completed a hat trick in the 4 Hours of Buriram, the third and penultimate round of the 2016-17 season of the Asian Le Mans Series, held over the weekend in Thailand. A Ferrari 488 GT3 of China's DH Racing pulled off a second successive win. This time it was car no. 3 of official Ferrari driver Olivier Beretta who triumphed along with Spain's Alex Riberas and Italy's Rino Mastronardi.
Demotion. At first car no. 5 of DH Racing appeared to have won but, at the end of the race, it was hit with a 24-second penalty for driving too slowly in the fast lane. The penalty relegated Michele Rugolo, Stephane Lemeret and Matthieu Vaxiviere to third. This handed victory to their teammates and second place to the 488 GT3 of BBT, which with Anthony Liu Xu, Alessandro Pier Guidi and David Rizzo won pole position in qualifying on Saturday.
A family affair. With just the Sepang 4 Hours on 22 January to go before the end of the season, the fight for the title is still very open for both the drivers' and the constructors' championships. Indeed, only one crew still in the running is not behind the wheel of a Ferrari. However, the Lamborghini of VS Racing team would have to win both the race and pole position to have a hope of clinching the title. So the Sepang round, in all probability will give the Prancing Horse and its customer teams their first major triumph of 2017.