01 August 2016
Francorchamps, 31 July - The name Ferrari is again in the roll of honour of the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. Kessel Racing triumphed with the Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 and four fantastic drivers: Australia's Liam Talbot, Russia's Vadim Gitlin and Italians Nicola Cadei and Marco Zanuttini who won in the Am Cup class.
Exciting race. The race was exciting and closely fought down to the finish, with unstable weather conditions, and many plot twists. However, it wasn't all plain sailing: just a few hours into the race the most highly rated Ferrari crew in the Pro-Am Cup class, car no. 53 AF Corse of Giancarlo Fisichella, Olivier Beretta, Lorenzo Bontempelli and Motoaki Ishikawa, was hit by the Porsche of Kevin Estre, author of an atrocious manoeuvre at the pit exit. Motoaki was at the wheel of the 488 GT3 when it was slammed into the barriers leaving his crewmates with nothing more to do.
Ferrari monopolise the podium. Ferrari partied alone in the Am class, monopolising the podium. In addition to the winner, the No. 888 458 Italia, second place went to the 488 GT3 of AF Corse crewed by Peter Mann, Matteo Cressoni, Rino Mastronardi and Francisco Guedes, who had long been in the lead. Third place was taken by another 488 GT3, that of Rinaldi Racing team driven by Pierre Ehret, Marco Seefried, Rinat Salikhov and Alexander Mattschull. The quartet pulled off a great recovery after the car had ended up spinning into the sand at the end of the first lap.