28 January 2016
Maranello, 28 January 2016 - The 2016 motorsport season is ready for the off and as usual the first race meeting of the year sees the great endurance competitors in Florida for the 24 Hours of Daytona, first race of the IMSA championship. Five Ferraris will line up on the circuit, which in December will host the Ferrari Finali Mondiali. Three examples of the Ferrari 488 GTE will take to the track at Daytona International Speedway to compete for victory in the GT-LeMans class. The Ferrari 488 GTE is heavily based on Ferrari’s newest road car, the Ferrari 488 GTB. Not only do the two vehicles share a large amount of DNA, but are assembled in the same factory in Maranello, Italy. The new turbocharged racer has completed over 10,000km in testing in preparation for its debut in Daytona.
GLTM. Three cars are down for the GT class-Le Mans (GTLM), all 488 GTEs, the brand new Ferrari GT competition car presented for the first time at the Finali Mondiali at Mugello in November. Two belong to teams traditionally prominent in American motorsport. Car no. 62 of the Texas based Risi Competizione will be crewed by Giancarlo Fisichella, who stays with the Texas based team, and Toni Vilander, recently arrived from Europe and ready to give chase for the American title. They will be joined at Daytona by Davide Rigon, a Ferrari driver who normally competes in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), and Olivier Beretta, winner in 2000 who last year raced in the Pirelli World Challenge with the Ferrari of R. Ferri. Scuderia Corsa will field car no. 68, driven by 2014 GTD winner Alessandro Pier Guidi, three-time winner Memo Rojas, Daniel Serra and Alexander Premat. No. 72 SMP Racing will be the third Ferrari in the GTLM class, with WEC 2015 (GTE-Am) world champions Andrea Bertolini and Viktor Shaytar ably assisted by a new pair in Ferrari no. 51 for the WEC 2016, "Gimmi "Bruni and James Calado.
GTD. A couple of Ferrari 458 GT3 Italias will be racing in the GTD class, ahead of the coming debut of the 488 GT3s, which have proved very competitive since the first tests. No. 63 Scuderia Corsa will be in the hands of the excellent Danish driver Christina Nielsen together with the German Robert Renauer and the highly experienced 2014 winnerJeff Segal and Italy's Alessandro Balzan, both former Grand-Am champions. Peter Mann, Matteo Cressoni, Raffaele Giammaria and Marco Cioci will be at the wheel of no. 51 Spirit of Race.
History. Ferrari has twice been overall winner of the 24 Hours. The first time was in 1967 with the official 330 P3/4 of Lorenzo Bandini and Chris Amon, when there was the famous one-two-three overall finish and a Ferrari hat-trick on the podium. Then in 1998 the 333 SP-Moretti Doran Racing team won with Arie Luyendyk, Didier Theys, Mauro Baldi and Gianpiero Moretti. There have also been eight class victories, most recently in 2014 in the GTD with Segal-Pier Guidi-Bell-Sweedler and Level 5 Motorsport. However, there have been another 11 wins not obtained in 24 hours. The first came in 1959, in the USAC series, with Santiago Gonzalez and Skip Hudson in a 250 GT for the Hans Hirch team. We also shouldn't forget the triumph in the 6 Hours of 1972 by the 312 PB Scuderia Ferrari with Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx.
TV and web. The television broadcast for the 24 Hours of Daytona will begin Saturday, January 30 at 2:00 PM ET on FOX Sports 1. Coverage will alternate throughout the race on FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2 and IMSA.com. Stay up to speed at @FerrariUSA and @FerrariRaces and join the conversation with #FerrariGTRacing and #FerrariFirsts.