The floodlights on the Imola circuit remain lit. With Sunday’s penultimate season event in the Challenge Europe over, the track named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari, will continue to see protagonism from the reds. Indeed, today sees the start of two days of private testing for F1 Clienti and Programme XX.
F1 Clienti. The entry list features as many as 13 single-seaters. The most recent, the F2012 taken out on track by Fernando Alonso, was the car in which the Spaniard narrowly missed out on the F1 championship title, claiming runner-up spot. Also ready to let roar with the 12 cylinders will be the F1-89 raced by Austrian Gerhard Berger and British driver Nigel Mansell. The limelight is likely to be stolen by the F2001 aboard which Michael Schumacher clinched his second world championship title for Ferrari, on a spectacular rampage that saw the German make the top step of the podium as often as nine times (out of 17 Grand Prix) in a single season. The same year, the F2001 of Scuderia stable-mate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, closed the season in third spot with 10 podiums. Also having belonged to Barrichello is the F2004 in which the driver secured second place behind team-mate Schumacher in a one-two that allowed Ferrari to furnish the trophy cabinet with the constructors’ championship prize too.
Programme XX. Hurtling around the 4,909-metre Imola track will be the extraordinary technologic laboratories from the Programme XX. Clients will be able to take advantage of the active aerodynamics and the 1,050 HP of the Hy-Kers-equipped V12 engine of the Ferrari FXX-K Evo, while also being able to savour the power and chassis attributes of the 599XX, 599XX Evo, FXX (the prototype which gave rise to the special programme in 2005) and the FXX K, the extreme version of LaFerrari.