The Ferrari 488 GT3 has claimed its first victory in Pirelli World Challenge, adding a highlight to the celebrations of Ferrari’s 70th anniversary.
This weekend, the PWC held its first SprintX weekend of the year. SprintX weekends feature a pair of one-hour races with a mandatory driver change. In the no. 31 TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, former Ferrari Challenge driver Daniel Mancinelli was joined by Andrea Montermini. Saturday’s race saw Mancinelli start and turn over to Montermini, with the Ferrari near the front of the field and able to capitalize when other cars received penalties for pit stop infringements.
Montermini withstood heavy pressure in the closing laps to take the GT-Pro victory, the first for him, Mancinelli and TR3 racing in only the team’s third PWC weekend. The two narrowly missed the podium in the second race of the weekend, held on Sunday morning, to finish in fourth place.
In the no. 61 R Ferri Motorsport, Alex Riberas will be joined by Kyle Marcelli for the SprintX races. After a strong opening stint by Riberas, Marcelli led in the closing stages of Saturday’s race before a penalty dropped the car to tenth at the checkered flag. But, the team rebounded to finish in sixth place in Sunday’s race.
In the GT-Am category, the no. 30 NGT Motorsport Ferrari 458 Italia of Henrique Cisneros and Tyler McQuarrie backed up their second place in class in Saturday’s race with victory in Sunday’s race. The no. 7 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia of Martin Fuentes and former Scuderia Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson was poised for a podium finish in GT-Am before a late-race incident.
The next round of Pirelli World Challenge will be the SprintX weekend May 19-21 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada.
