Weekend notebook: three Ferrari wins in the CIGT Endurance

In the first round of the Italian GT Endurance Series Championship at Pergusa, Scuderia Baldini claimed the overall victory, further enhanced by triumphs for Best Lap in the GT Cup and SR&R in the GT Cup Am. In the United States, at the Circuit of the Americas - COTA, in the third round of the GT World Challenge America, the Conquest Racing-run Ferrari 296 GT3 was unable to finish Race 1 due to an accident and was forced to miss out on the second. The other 296 GT3, courtesy of Triarsi Competizione, finished seventh and sixth in the Pro Am class.

Italian Gran Turismo Championship. A hattrick for the Ferraris involved in the debut round of the CIGT Endurance series, on the track in Pergusa, Sicily. Giancarlo Fisichella and Tommaso Mosca in the Scuderia Baldini-entered Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 crossed the finish line first in a weekend hampered by bad weather, forcing the organisers to initially suspend Saturday’s qualifying before interrupting Sunday’s race for an hour due to a heavy downpour.

In GT3, in the first stint, Mosca, starting from second position, avoided taking any risks on the wet asphalt and then took the lead at the first opportunity, edging away and handing over the car to Fisichella with a gap of over two seconds. The ex-Formula 1 driver, as the track began to dry, continued to push, bringing the car back for the driver swap, still holding first place. In the final stint Mosca focused solely on managing the race, subsequently taking the chequered flag with a 32-second lead over his pursuers. Just shy of the podium, in fourth, was the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of AF Corse crewed by Jules Castro, Stefano Gai and Eliseo Donno, current leader of the Trofeo Pirelli in the Ferrari Challenge Europe.

The other two triumphs of the day came in the class dedicated to single-marque cars: in the GT Cup there was victory for the Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo of Best Lap, driven by Simone Patrinicola, Luca Demarchi and Sabatino Di Mare, ahead of the other car of the Maranello manufacturer belonging to SR&R team, with Ciccio La Mazza, Manuel Menichini and Francesco Atzori, first in the GT Cup Am.

GT World Challenge America. The two races as part of the third round of the season were held at the Circuit of the Americas - COTA with two Ferrari 296 GT3s taking part, the number 21 Conquest Racing entry with Manny Franco and Alessandro Balzan in the Pro class, and the Triarsi Competizione-run number 33 driven by Ryan Dalziel and Justin Wetherill in Pro-Am.

In Saturday’s opening race, Franco, at the wheel of the Conquest Racing car, was holding second position when he was hit by another competitor going into turn 1. The damage sustained to the 296 GT3 - which in the first two season outings had always finished on the podium - did not allow the team to complete the race, nor to line up for the second.

The Ferrari of Triarsi Competizione, meanwhile, after finishing seventh in the class in Race 1, took the chequered flag on Sunday, posting sixth in Pro Am, ninth overall. Dalziel, who started from second in Race 2, took the lead in the early stages before getting penalised with a drive-through, dropping him to 14th position. After the driver swap, Wetherill came back out on track in seventh spot and, racing on a track made slippery by some light rain, crossed the finish line having recovered one position.