MOTORSPORT NEWS ARCHIVE
F430GT in 3rd place at Sebring 12 Hour
The Ferrari F430GT made its world
racing debut at the weekend (18-19 March 2006) and finished on the podium
in the grueling Sebring 12 hour race in the USA. Anthony Lazzaro raced
across the finish line at Sebring to bring the brand-new Risi Competizione
Ferrari F430GT home third in GT2 class in the gruelling 12 hour duration
marathon race.
This year, the 54th running of the Annual Mobil 1 12 Hours
of Sebring, witnessed one of most exciting races for honours in the GT2
class within recent memory, with the on-track lead changing hands several
times an hour right throughout the race. The podium trio were eventually
separated by less than 50 seconds after 320 laps of close-fought racing.
The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430GT was right in the
hunt from the moment the new car was unloaded at Sebring earlier this
month to kick off pre-race testing, and all race long it traded the lead
in its GT2 class with the #50 Multimac Motorsports Panoz Esperante GTLM.
"The world saw the debut of the latest Ferrari sports
racing car, this week, along with the team debut of a very gifted young
driver, Jaime Melo," says Team Managing Director Giuseppe Risi. "We're
delighted with the overall mechanical performance of the car and the Michelin
tyres were superb. It's been very satisfying debut for the F430GT."
Brazilian Jaime Melo joined Risi Competizione for this
race and has been a real revelation here, one of the drivers who stood
out. An official Ferrari test driver, he has brought valuable knowledge
gained during the car's development programme to the team. He also set
the fastest GT2 lap of the race, breaking the official circuit record
in the process.
Meanwhile, Chief Engineer Rick Mayer was also impressed
by the new Ferrari F430GT, commenting: "We only had the car for a
couple of days before we went to Sebring. Our team did a great job of
preparing the car at short notice. We had no reliability problems whatsoever.
It's very solid, dependable and fast new race car."
54th Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, GT2 race result:
1st (15) David Brabham, Sébastien Bourdais, Scott Maxwell, Canada
(Panoz Esperante GTLM) 320 laps ;
2nd Marc Lieb, Johannes van Overbeek, Jon Fogarty (Porsche 911 GT3 RSR)
+ 5.365 seconds ;
3rd Ralf Kelleners, Jaime Melo, Anthony Lazzaro (Ferrari 430 GT) + 49.013
4th Darren Law, Seth Neiman, Lonnie Pechnik (Porsche 911 GT3 RSR) + 5
laps ;
5th Richard Dean, Tom Kimber-Smith, Lawrence Tomilson (Panoz Esperante
GTLM) + 8 laps ;
6th Mike Rockenfeller, Klaus Graf, Graham Rahal, (Porsche 911 GT3 RSR)
+ 9 laps
©ItalianCar 2006
