Weekend preview: ten Ferraris in the CIGT Sprint Series

The round beginning the new season of the Italian Gran Turismo championship, which will see ten Ferraris ready to compete in the Sprint series with a format including two races of 50 minutes plus one lap, will be at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

CIGT. The 21st edition of the Italian Gran Turismo championship kicks off from Misano, on this occasion the Sprint series, with 43 cars expected. New this year, to cope with the high number of entrants, the organisers decided to split the races into two groups: one reserved for GT3 and one for the GT Cup. Ten cars in total representing the Maranello manufacturer.

In the GT3 class, AF Corse is fielding two Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020s: number 51, entrusted to the pairing of Jules Castro and Luka Nurmi, the latter being the winner of the 2022 Ferrari Finali Mondiali, and number 52 with Stuart White and Jean-Luc D’Auria. The Best Lap crew will also be at the start in GT3, the 2022 winners of the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint championship in the GT Cup class, made up of Luigi Coluccio and Rocco Mazzola.

In the class reserved for single-marque cars, there is also a large contingent of Ferrari 488 Challenge Evos, with three driven by Best Lap with Luca Demarchi and Simone Patrinicola in Pro Am, while Gianmarco Marzialetti together with Nicola D’Aniello and Lorenzo Nicoli with Vincenzo Scarpetta will compete in Am.

Also in Pro Am for the GT Cup is number 152 of SR&R with Alessio Bacci and Giacomo Parisotto and number 199 of the Double TT Racing team with Leonardo Colavita and Michele Rugolo. The 488 Challenge Evos in the Am class complete the Ferrari line-up: the number 251 of SR&R with Lorenzo Bontempelli and Manuel Menichini, and the number 296 of Easy Race with Leonardo Del Col and Elia Galvanin.

Programme. On Saturday, there will be two separate official practice sessions for the two classes, from 8.40 to 10.10 a.m., followed by the GT3 races starting at 3.30 p.m. and GT Cup with the green light at 6.30 p.m. The two races on Sunday will start at 1.40 and 3 p.m. All times are local.