Pirelli Tires in Canada

Trois-Rivieres, Quebec - Beginning with this Sunday's two-hour, 45-minute Le Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres, Pirelli and the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) will be competing north-of-the-border for the next two races. Celebrating its 96 th year of top-level motorsports competition this year, Pirelli is looking to return to regular podium appearances with some exciting new teams this year.
Focusing primarily on GTS and GT customers during 2003, Pirelli P Zero race tires shod a quality list of cars in the first three rounds of the ALMS at Sebring, Road Atlanta and Sonoma.
Pirelli's strong bond with Ferrari includes two World Sports Car championships in 1995 and 1998, as well as winning the inaugural Petit Le Mans overall and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the prototype class in the latter year.
Pirelli is, therefore, thrilled to be supporting the efforts of two outstanding Ferrari teams for the entire 2003 ALMS season. Ferrari 550 Maranellos have already demonstrated that they are capable of dethroning the Corvettes in the GTS championship this year and Gabriele Rafanelli's Team Olive Garden is hungry to be that team. With a completely revised vehicle and the focus of Pirelli engineering, drivers Emanuele Naspetti (Italy) and Mimmo Schiattarella (Monaco) look to improve on last year's record of three podium finishes and fourth place in the 2002 ALMS GTS team championship.
Meanwhile, in GT, two Pirelli-shod Ferrari 360 Modenas from Miami-based JMB Racing USA hope to challenge the dominating Porsches of Alex Job Racing and The Racer's Group.
Ferrari #28 will be driven at Sonoma by JMB regulars Stephane Gregoire (Carmel, Ind.) and Eliseo Salazar (Chile) while Italian Christian Pescatori and JMB principal Ludovico Manfredi (Key Biscayne, FL) will man the #29 Ferrari. Multiple sports car champions in Europe and a fourth in class at Sebring, JMB Racing looks to continue their winning ways by competing in North America for the entire ALMS season.
Also committing to the ALMS for the year is the two-car team of London-based PK Sport with lead driver Scot Robin Liddell joined by Aussie Alex Davison, a four-year veteran of the German Carrera Cup, in the #60 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Veteran Vic Rice (San Rafael, Calif.) will compete in the #61 Porsche with a driver to be announced. PK Sport finished second in class at last year's 12 Hours of Sebring.

Pirelli will also shod the 675 Lola entry of Essex Racing for Jason Workman (Flowery Branch, GA) and Melanie Patterson (Toronto). Essex Racing took Pirelli's first podium of the ALMS season at the historic Sonoma where the 675 class finished first overall over the dominant Audis.
In addition to these seasoned teams, one of the most anticipated events of the season was the debut performance of the #03 Hyper Sport Panoz Esperante GTLM at June's Chevy Grand Prix. Built just down the street from Road Atlanta, the Panoz Esperante GTLM with the 5.0 liter Elan power plant is the only American-bred car challenging the likes of the German and Italian thoroughbreds in the ALMS GT class this season.
Even the Hyper Sport team has some interesting background. Team principals Rick Skelton (Atlanta) and Brad Nyberg (Houston) are graduates of the Panoz GT and Pro Series where they were top competitors for the past two years while Joe Foster, Chief Driving Instructor of the Panoz Driving School, is the team's lead driver.
To illustrate the growth of the ALMS over the past five years one needs to only look at the number of cars on the grid this year compared to 2002; 37 sports cars should take the green flag this weekend versus 29 just last year.
Founded in 1872, the Pirelli Group is one of the world's leading manufacturers of tires for most cars and light trucks plus cables for telecommunications, electronic data and power transmission. Pirelli tires are fitted as original equipment to more than 350 different vehicle models, from the world's most powerful supercars to modest gas-, diesel- and electricity-driven city cars.

Pirelli Tire North America specializes in the manufacture and marketing of high-performance car, light truck and motorcycle tires and currently has three of its highly advanced MIRS (Modular Integrated Robotized System) modules in operation in a new factory in Rome, Georgia, to better serve the American OEM and Replacement markets. For more information, visit the Company's web site at: www.us.pirelli.com.
The race will be televised on Speed Channel from 2:30-4:30 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, Aug. 3. Race fans can listen to live coverage of the race on the American Le Mans Series Radio Web at www.americanlemans.com. In two weeks, the ALMS heads to Mosport near Toronto for the fifth round of the series where it will be nationally televised on NBC at 2:00 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, August 17.