Ferrari gunning for hattrick at Le Castellet

The third round of the Le Mans Cup will take place at the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet over the weekend, in place of the Barcelona round cancelled due to the COVID emergency. Five Ferraris will line up in the GT3 class for two different teams. Prancing Horse cars monopolised the top step of the podium in the first two rounds of 2020. Iron Lynx will field two Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020s, hoping to repeat the excellent results of the previous races. Expectations are especially high for Rino Mastronardi and reigning champion Giacomo Piccini in car no. 8 who top the GT3 class on 52 points after two victories. The Italian team's second car is the no. 77, crewed by Claudio Schiavoni and Andrea Piccini, who will be seeking payback after leaving the last round at Spa with zero points. The Ferrari of Kessel Racing driven by Murod Sultanov, who in France will be joined by Andrea Belicchi, is looking for its first win of the season. The team lies second in the standings 19 points behind the leaders. The new Russo-Italian pairing at the wheel of car no. 67 car, always on the podium this season, are in the hunt for a win that would open up the championship. After finishing second in Belgium, Michael Broniszewski and David Perel in Kessel Racing no. 74, also harbour ambitions for victory. The Swiss team’s line-up is completed by John Hartshorne and Oliver Hancock in car no. 50, which fell short of its best at Spa-Francorchamps due to time lost in the pits to repair damage after contact with an LMP3 class prototype.

Programme. On Friday 28 August, two free practice sessions are scheduled from 1:05 pm to 2:04 pm and from 7 pm to 8 pm. GT3 qualifying will take place on Saturday from 9:30 am to 9:45 am, with the green lights going out at 2 pm for the two-hour race.