28 April 2017
Estoril, 28 April 2017 - The 2017 International GT Open season starts in Portugal with three Ferrari 488 GT3s in the Pro and Pro-Am classes competing for four Maranello customer teams.
Pro. The Pro class will see the car of Spirit of Race in the hands of Portugal's Miguel Ramos and Denmark's Mikkel Mac Jansen. Ramos has won a Spanish GT title and an Italian title, while also triumphing in the International GT Open in 2015. Mac Jansen, just 25 years old, had a great season with Formula Racing in 2015 when the Danish team won the European Le Mans Series.
Pro-Am. The other two Ferraris will compete in the Pro-Am class. The AF Corse team car will be driven by Marco Cioci, who came fourth in the first race of the Blancpain Endurance Cup for Kaspersky Motorsport, with Piergiuseppe Perazzini, an experienced GT Open driver. There will also be a 488 GT3 of Britain's FF Corse team, crewed by the British pair of Johnny Mowlem, winner of the European Le Mans Series 2013 with the Ferrari of RAM Racing, and Ivor Dunbar, who has been active in the most important GT championships for a couple of years.
Programme. Qualifying takes place at 9:40 am on Saturday while Race-1 will kick off at 3:15 pm. On Sunday qualifying is again at 9:40 am and Race-2 at 1:15 pm. Ferrari has won more than 30 races at Estoril, the last two years ago in the VdeV Endurance championship with the AF Corse team and the Italians Marco Zanuttini and Mario Cordoni.