FF Corse is entering the Fox Motorsport-owned Ferrari 488 GT3 in the International GT Open round at Silverstone next month. This news comes after the team recently competed in the British GT Silverstone 500, with Marco Attard and Adam Carroll driving.
Driving the car will be the British duo of Jamie Stanley and Paul McNeilly, who were originally touted to drive the car in British GT.
“After Silverstone, we want to do as much with the GT3 car as possible,” FF Corse owner Anthony Cheshire told DSC. “It’s good for Stanley and McNeilly, who got booted out of their drives in British GT to make way for Marco and Adam. The race is obviously in our back garden, and it makes sense therefore to get the car out so Jamie and Paul can see what the 488 is all about.”
FF Corse had a great debut outing with the 488 at Silverstone in British GT, finishing third in the rain-soaked three-hour race, and is hoping to make more appearances in the series later this year.
“We’re looking into it,” he said. “I’d love to enter more British GT races, but it comes down to budget and drivers. We are happy to make way for any driver combinations, but as we all know the 488 requires a lot of money to go racing.”
Nevertheless, Cheshire pointed out that the GT3 class in the British GT Championship this year has lacked is usual numbers and variety. At Silverstone, the GT4 class was huge with a combined field including GT4 European Series runners.
“We had a pretty good race at Silverstone, all things considered. We had an issue in Free Practice 1 with Marco and a GT4 car, which left some damage to the car,” he admitted. “And had potential to cause quite a few issues, but as it happens we got away relatively lightly.
“I can see people’s concerns. Liam Griffin was quite vocal, I get that, there’s nothing worse than having your race destroyed by someone on an invitation basis from another championship. From a commercial point of view it makes it difficult to run GT3 in that series. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
“From the SRO’s point of view, they’ve got the circuit, they want to fill it as much as possible, but they’ve got to be careful. I think the frustration over time has caused them to lose GT3 cars from that grid.
“I do feel that GT3 and GT4 should be standalone championships.”
