Steps from the Pacific Ocean, four different Ferrari 488s will charge down Shoreline Boulevard this weekend during the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Ferraris have been thrilling crowds in Long Beach, California since the beginning of racing on the street circuit. Ferrari captured victory three times during the era of the United States Grand Prix West – in 1976 (Clay Regazzoni), 1978 (Carlos Reutemann), and 1979 (Gilles Villeneuve). More recently, Ferraris captured the IMSA GT2 class victories in 2007 (Risi Competizione) and 2008 (Tafel Racing), and Olivier Beretta won the 2015 Pirelli World Challenge race in an R.Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 458 GT3.
This weekend, in the midst of a yearlong celebration of Ferrari’s 70th Anniversary, four teams are eager to secure another victory at Long Beach for Ferrari.
The teams competing in the IMSA Sports Car Championship will face a very different challenge than the previous race at Sebring. The Saturday afternoon race, which will feature a shorter-than-normal race distance of 100 minutes, will place a premium on the drivers extracting the most speed possible on the bumpy street circuit in qualifying as well as the speed of the pit crews during the race’s likely single pit stop.
Both Risi Competizione and Scuderia Corsa arrive in Long Beach after finishing on the podium at Sebring. At Sebring, for the second straight race, the no. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE driven by Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander closed out a hard-fought race with a third-place finish. After two races, they are third in the GT-LeMans season championship.
Risi Competizione has one victory at Long Beach, in 2007, as well as six additional podium finishes on the street circuit. Last year at Long Beach, the team scored the first GT-LeMans podium for the Ferrari 488 GTE.
This year marks the first time that the GT-Daytona class will compete at Long Beach, and thus it is the first time that the no. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 will compete on the street circuit. However, drivers Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen have raced there before and are fresh from a runner-up finish at Sebring.
In Sunday’s Pirelli World Challenge race, another pair of Ferrari 488s will be competing for victory after they had a strong start to the season in the series’ first weekend at St. Petersburg.
Alex Riberas, driving the no. 61 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3, scored the first PWC podium of the season for Ferrari in the second race at St. Petersburg with a third-place finish after qualifying on pole position. Daniel Mancinelli, driving the no. 31 TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, scored pole position in the first race of that weekend in the series debut for him as well as the TR3 Racing team.
Saturday’s IMSA Sports Car Championship race will be broadcast live on FOX on Saturday, April 8 at 4:00 PM ET, while qualifying will be streamed live on Friday, April 7 at 7:30 PM ET on IMSA.tv.
The Pirelli World Challenge race will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network on Sunday, April 9 at 2:30 PM ET.
