Weekend preview: Ferraris in the chase for the Sprint titles at Mugello

The penultimate round of the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint Championship at the Mugello track is set to feature a heavy Ferrari presence, with the title challenges wide open in the various classes.

CIGT. Forty-five crews are confirmed at the start for the third round of the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint Championship held this weekend at the Mugello circuit. Among the GT3s will be, Stuart Peter White and Jean-Luc D’Auria – fifth in the overall standings on 32 points – at the start in the AF Corse number 52 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

The Piacenza-based team will also field the number 51 with Jules Castro and Luka Nurmi, the latter the winner of the 2021 Finali Mondiali in the Trofeo Pirelli, a crew currently in second place in the GT3 Pro Am class seven points behind the leader. AF Corse also lines up two other cars: the number 21 of Ray Acosta and Osvaldo Negri and the number 88 of Custodio Toledo and Riccardo Agostini. Luigi Coluccio and Rocco Mazzola will represent Best Lap in the number 23 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

In the single-marque cars of the GT Cup, the Pro Am class will include the leader of the standings, Leonardo Colavita, who will share the number 199 Double TT Racing-managed Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo with Giorgio Maggi. Also on the entry list will be the Reds of Demarchi-Patrinicola for the Best Lap team, Gai-Fontana and Dhillon-Griffin for Formula Racing, Matthew Korzejewski for Pellin Racing, and De Col-Biagi for Easy Race, winners of Race-2 in the previous round at Monza. 

In GT Cup Am, the leadership will be defended by the Nicoli-Scarpetta pairing in the number 290 Best Lap-run Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo, who have a five-point lead over their closest rivals. Also in the same class will be Buttarelli-Marazzi for Rossocorsa, Canadian Thor Haugen and American Lisa Clark for the Pellin Racing team, Danish driver Andreas Bøgh Sorensen for Formula Racing and the duo made up of Marzialetti-D’Aniello for Best Lap.

The weekend in Tuscany will kick off on Friday with the two Free Practice sessions and will continue on Saturday with two Qualifying sessions divided into classes, from 8:55 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., with the first two 50-minute one-lap races starting at 3:30 p.m. (GT3) and 4:40 p.m. (GT Cup). Finally, on Sunday, the programme includes the GT3 class race at 2:30 p.m. followed by the GT Cup class race at 3:40 p.m., once again a 50-minute plus one lap race.