10 March 2016
Le Castellet, 10 March 2016 - Testing for both the Blancpain GT Series ended today at Paul Ricard Circuit, in France. Many drivers were busy preparing for the new season that will kick off on April 10 for the Sprint Cup series (race in Misano) and two weeks later for the Endurance Cup series, with the usual Monza debut.
Two models and many cars on track. The Prancing Horse will be present in the 2016 Blancpain GT Series with two different models: the familiar 458 Italia GT3 and the new 488 GT3. AF Corse, Black Pearl by Rinaldi Racing and Rinaldi Racing each have one car competing in the full season. The latter - again with Norbert Siedler, Marco Seefried and Rinat Salikhov at the wheel - will certainly attempt to emulate their excellent 2015 campaign. In the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup there will be five Ferraris and in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup no less than 13 (three in the main class, 5 in the Pro-Am Cup class and 5 in the Am Cup class). Other teams racing with Ferrari are Classic&Modern Racing and Kessel Racing.
Fisichella and Beretta on track. Four all-new 488s GT3 and two 458s GT3 are the line-up of the AF Corse Ferraris in the Blancpain Endurance Series 2016. In the main category there will be a 488 GT3 for Pasin Lathouras, Michele Rugolo and Alessandro Pier Guidi and a 458 Italia GT3 for Ezequiel Perez-Companc, Raffaele Giammaria and Alessandro Balzan. In the Pro-Am Cup class there’s the big surprise of two Ferrari Competizioni GT drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella and Olivier Beretta, that will take turns during the championship in the car driven by Motoaki Ishikawa and Lorenzo Bontempelli. In this class will also race the 2015 reigning champions Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin. In the Am Cup class there will be the return of 2014 champions Peter Mann and Francisco Guedesc alongside Rino Mastronardi, on a 488 GT3, and the 458 Italia GT3 of Alexander Moiseev, Garry Kondakov and Riccardo Ragazzi.