Italian GT Championship, Misano – Preview
Round Two On The Riviera

After a (way too) long break of almost two months, the Italian GT Championship 2011 will race this weekend at Misano; the perfect place to have a relaxing time enjoying the sun, the good food, and…girls [Well, he is Italian - Ed]. As was the case last year, the programme has been split into two sections, with race one on Saturday night and race two on Sunday afternoon. What can we expect this time?

First, the much-loved BoP. Changes on the weight side this time: all the 430 Ferrari GT Cups will be at 1280kg (1310 before); the Porsches up until 2009-spec will lose weight, down to 1135 kg (1165 before); but the major earthquake is on the Lamborghini side, where their weight gain is 30kg (up to 1350kg) - but also the restrictor size will decrease to 50mm (53 before). Will this be enough to slow the walk-away pace shown at Vallelunga two months ago?

Happily, there are some new entries, so let’s have a close look. In GT3 the title leader have will have a major change - with Dindo Capello up in the north east of France in a very familiar place in June, his place will be take by the young gun Alberto Cola. The GT3 class will have also a Corvette from the RC Motorsport team with, Merendino and Di Benedetto as drivers. In the “lonely” GT2 class, other than the Coggiola brothers’ Porsche at Misano, we’ll have a Ferrari 430 from the Vittoria Competizioni team; Ferdinando Geri will be one of the drivers.  In GT Cup, Fabrizio Del Monte will take the normal duties of Stefano Comandini, in the Porsche side. In GT4, we’ll have two more Ginetta G50s; one from the Costa Ovest team, and the other from GDL Racing; for the boss Gianluca De Lorenzi himself and Marco Cassarà.

Gabriel Tosi