“Apparently still moving….” could be an appropriate description for the Italian GT Championship, which is almost out of its long winter pause; but new has started to emerge from this (not so cold) off-season.
After a season with lots of problems for almost every car, especially getting up to temperature, Avon are out as the official tyre supplier and Pirelli will serve all the cars in both the GT and Cup classes; a return for the Italian firm after years of Michelin and Avon. The contract will last until the end of the 2015 season.
Audi Sport Italia will definitely return for another assault in the main title class, with two cars; Team Manager Emilio Radaelli having confirmed this news even before the end of last year.
But there’s no sign of the BMW, with the Blancpain season being the priority this year for Roal Motorsport.
Other confirmed entries include MP1 Corse, who return with an all-new 458 Ferrari, still in the main class, and Imperiale Racing and its black beauty Lamborghini.
Imperiale will again have the services of the ultra-fast young gun Giacomo Barri, who will himself have the 2013 Lamborghini Supertrofeo champion Andrea Amici alongside. This means that factory man Giorgio Sanna will step down from the driving.
What about the 2013 Champions? The good news is that EbiMotors will be back to defend its much-deserved title, gained in the thrilling finale at Monza last October, but this year Vito Postiglione and Luigi Lucchini will be replaced by Vincenzo Donaviti, a longtime Porsche driver, and Andrea Gagliardini, both of whom hail from Rome – an all-new challenge for one of the best non-factory Porsche racing teams.
There’s no other major news to report for the main class – still no sign of other marques, such as Mercedes and Corvette – but let’s hope we have more cars on the grid for the very late (as usual) season-start in May at Misano.
The Cup class will have again Omar Galbiati in the Antonelli Porsche, and a new team, Scuderia Giudici, which will run Marco Fumagalli and Andrea Perlini. The latter is the son of Francesco Perlini, who is famous in Italy owing to back to back victories (in 1992 and 1993) in the glory days of the Paris–Dakar rally in the Perlini truck, which was a true monster like the old DAF raced by the De Rooy family…ah, the good old days.
Gabriele Tosi
