Weekend notebook: two Ferraris in the top six at Abu Dhabi

In the final round of the Asian Le Mans Series, AF Corse’s Ferrari 296 GT3s took fifth and sixth place, the best results from the four Maranello-based manufacturers’ cars on the track in the last two races of the season, held on the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.

Asian Le Mans Series. A four-hour double round closed the 2023/2024 season of the Asian Le Mans Series. In the fifth and final race, interrupted for more than an hour by a red flag following an accident, came the best results of the weekend for the Ferraris in the GT class reserved for production-derived cars. These were achieved by the two AF Corse crews, thanks to a fifth place by the number 21 296 GT3 with Simon Mann, Francois Herieu and Davide Rigon – seventh in Saturday’s race – and the sixth by the number 82 driven by Charles-Henri Samani, Emanuel Collard and the Italo-Japanese Kei Cozzolino, who were sixteenth in the first race.

Rui Andrade, Nicola Marinangeli and Marco Pulcini finished outside the top 10, in the number 98 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Dragon Racing, who set the third best time in qualifying for Race-2, and were twelfth over the line on both Saturday and Sunday. The British in GR Racing had much less luck at the weekend, with Riccardo Pera causing a spin in the first race that ended violently on the barriers, with the red flag showing for more than an hour. There were no physical consequences for the Italian, at the start in the Ferrari 296 GT3 number 86 together with Michael Wainwright and Benjamin Barker. The car was however forced to retire and was unable to take part in the second race of the weekend.