Weekend notebook: Ferrari just off podium at Brands Hatch
The Brands Hatch circuit in the UK hosted the first round of this season’s GT World Challenge Europe Sprint, where the two Ferrari 296 GT3s battled to secure positions close to the podium. The 488 GT3 Evo 2020 met with bad luck. After finishing fifth in class in Race-1, it had to retire in Race-2.
GT World Challenge Europe. The weekend had started very well at the Brands Hatch track with the two Ferrari 296 GT3s of Emili Frey Racing vying for pole position. The two cars from the Maranello-based manufacturer looked likely to occupy the first two places on the grid until two minutes before the end of qualifying, when Raffaele Marciello snatched pole, relegating the pairing of Albert Costa and Thierry Vermeulen to second place, with Konsta Lappalainen and Giacomo Altoè in third.
In Race-1, the number 14 Ferrari held second for a long time. Then, at the driver change, it lost 10 seconds to its rivals in the pitstop, slipping to fourth place. In the end, Costa and Vermeulen closed in seventh, while Lappalainen and Altoè crossed the line in fifth. The Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of AF Corse with Sean Hudspeth and Nicola Marinangeli was twenty-third overall and fifth in the Silver Cup. In Race-2, the Piacenza-based team’s crew failed to finish, while Lappalainen and Altoè came eighth overall and Costa and Vermeulen fourteenth.
The GT World Challenge Europe championship is back on the track next weekend with the official tests of the 24 Hours of Spa, ahead of the six-hour Endurance event at the Paul Ricard from 2 to 4 June. We will have to wait until the second round on 15 and 16 July in Misano, Italy, to see the Sprint series on the track again.