Spa 24 Hours: Pirelli second with Ferrari

The Spa 24 Hours, after 558 laps and 24 pit stop has confirmed forces in the FIA GT championship, graduating Ferrari as "summer champion". Much more competitive, leading for many hours and at the end of the race second for banal solidity problems of the auto body, the 575 of the GPC Squadra Corse team drived by Salo, Babini and Peter: leading for approximately half race it has conquered 5 points when it was to the lead after the first six hours of race. The recent engine and aerodynamic upgrades, joined to the new compound of the Pirelli P Zero tyres, have evidently paid. The performances gap with the competition's Ferrari 550 - here winner the #2 of Cappellari - has been overwhelmed inasmuch as for all the race the two concurrent cars have run with the same times and as the Ferrari 575 #13 with Naspetti has marked the best time of the race. Thanks to the new performances Babini have conquered also the 5 points assigned to the races leader after the first six hours. Regarding of the caught up performances, Mika Salo has confirmed: "We have run a fantastic race with a great car: machine and tyres have perfectly collaborated". The Saleen Pirelli equipped has not been able to express their true potential for general reliability problems: the #4 has collapsed a hub, while the #5 has concluded for problems to the fuel feeding. In N-GT class accident for Pescatori, without consequences for the driver but heavy for the car, at 17 minutes only from the race's start. A true shame because the Ferrari 360 of the GPC Squadra Corse team, equipped with new construction P Zero tyres, had distinguished itself on the Porsches of the competition hitting the category pole position. Final classification: 1 Capellari/Gollin/Bryner/Calderari Ferrari 550 M 558 2:18.885 2 Peter/Babini /Salo/Vosse Ferrari 575 M 1 lap 2:20:220 3 Ortelli/Collard/Dumas Porsche 996 GT3-RS 13 laps 2:23.052 4 Vasiliev/Berhard/Bergmeister Porsche 996 GT3-RS 15 laps 2:23.399 5 Maassen/Luhr/Lieb Porsche 996 GT3-RS 30 laps 2:23.631 6 Muller/Muller/Stuk BMW M3 GTR 33 laps 2:26.753