30 May 2016
Imola, 30 May 2016 – The second round of the 2016 Italian GT Championship gave Ferrari customer teams a win and three podium finishes as the championship moved to Imola, on the legendary Enzo and Dino Ferrari track located near Bologna.
The win. The win came in Race-1 in the GT Cup class where Ferraris have been unbeatable with the 458 Challenge EVO driven by Dario Caso and Sossio Del Prete leading the pack since the beginning. Scuderia Victoria's pairing won in front of the sister car of Vincenzo Sauto and Mirko Zanardini (Duel Race) that tried to take P1 in the closing stages. Third place went to Lino and Carlo Curti (Ebimotors Porsche). In Race-2 the winners were “Poppy” and Di Leo (Porsche) but the second podium went again to Sauto-Zanardini.
One more podium finish. The other podium finish of the Imola weekend for the Ferrari customer teams came in Race-1 of the GT3 class. The victory went to Postiglione-Gagliardini (Lamborghini) but one of the major player of the day was the Ferrari 458 Italia of Scuderia Baldini 27 Network driven by Eddie Cheever III and Federico Leo. Cheever started the 48-minute race and after 25 minutes Leo took over the car being able to end the race on the second step of the podium.
Disappointing Sunday. On Sunday the race was red flaggd shortly after the compulsory driver change because of the heavy rain that hit the Imola track. In Super GT class on Saturday the winners were Bortolotti-Mul (Lamborghini by Imperiale Racing) with the two Ferrari 488s in fifth (Mancinelli-Geri in the Easy Race car) and sixth (Venturi-Gai on the Black Bull Swisse Racing one), while on Sunday when the race was stopped the Audi crew Albuquerque-Mapelli was declared the winner. Venturi-Gai were classified eight while Mancinelli-Geri did not finish the race. Next round is at Misano on June 11-12.