Three Ferrari teams prep for Daytona 24 Hour in ‘Roar Before the 24’

Ferrari will look to add a new chapter of success in North America’s premier endurance event with the 60th running of the 24 Hours At Daytona (Jan. 29-30) to open the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. The event has attracted a bumper 61-car grid including three representatives of the Prancing Horse marque, led by the no. 62 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of Risi Competizione which will compete in the new-for-2022 GTD Pro category.  The new GTD Pro class will feature cars built or modified to international GT3 specification with all-pro driver lines ups, while GTD continues as a class for GT3 cars with Pro-Am lineups.

Preparation for the event begins with this weekend’s Roar Before the 24 on January 21-23, which will feature a 100-minute qualifying race to set the grid for the 24 Hour race the following weekend.  The weekend will begin with practice sessions on the 21st and 22nd of January before the qualifying race begins at 2:05 p.m. (all times ET). 

The no. 62 entry of Risi Competizione will be the sole representative of the marque in the GTD Pro category and will be driven by an all-factory driver line up of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Daniel Serra and Davide Rigon.  As only two drivers may take part in the 100-minute qualifying race, that burden will fall to Rigon and Serra.  Meanwhile, there will be two additional Ferraris competing in the GT-Daytona category with the no. 21 entry powered by AF Corse and the no. 47 entered by Cetilar Racing.  Both GTD entries will also make use of the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.  The AF Corse entry makes its return after a heartbreaking end to the 2021 edition to the race with a familiar line up of Simon Mann, Nicklas Nielsen, Toni Vilander and Luis Perez Compac, of which Vilander and Compac will handle qualifying duties.  For Cetilar Racing it will be an all-Italian driver line up of Roberto Lacorte, Alessio Rovera, Giorgio Sernagiotto and Antonio Fuoco, with Sernagiotto and Fuoco handling qualifying responsibility. 

Daytona home to historic Ferrari results.  Ferrari has enjoyed many red-letter outings in the 59-year history of the Daytona classic – dating all the way back to 1962, when reigning American F1 World Champion Phil Hill and Pedro Rodriguez placed second in a Ferrari Dino in the inaugural Daytona Continental, with Stirling Moss winning his class with a fourth-place finish in a Ferrari 250 GT.

Pedro Rodriguez won the following two years, joined by Hill in the latter event in a 250 GTO entered by American Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti Jr. Since then, Ferraris raced in all but two of the Daytona events, winning overall five times in addition to scoring 16 class victories.

Ferrari’s biggest factory effort at Daytona came in 1967, at the height of the Ferrari vs. Ford battle for international sports car supremacy. With Ford sweeping the podium at both Daytona and Le Mans in 1966, Ferrari rebounded with a 1-2-3 sweep at Daytona, led by Lorenzo Bandini and Chris Amon in a Ferrari 330 P4 as the red cars took the checkered flag in three-abreast formation.

Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx won overall in 1972 in a Ferrari 312 PB, while Gianpiero Moretti, Arie Luyendyk, Mauro Baldi and Didier Theys scored a popular triumph in 1998 in a Kevin Doran-prepared Ferrari F333 SP. Ferrari’s most recent class victory was in 2014 in the then newly created GTD category, with Pier Guidi part of the lineup for the Level Five Motorsports Ferrari F458 Italia GT3.

Schedule.  The Roar Before the 24 begins on Friday with a 75-minute practice session at 11:15 a.m., followed by a 105-minute session at 4:15 p.m. Saturday includes qualifying at 3:25 p.m., followed by a two-hour night session at 7 p.m. The 24 Hour weekend begins with three practice sessions on Thursday, Jan. 27, followed by final practice Friday at 1:40 p.m. The 60th edition of the American classic takes the green flag at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 29.