It is time for a restart, the Italian GT does it in style with 34 entered cars

The 19th edition of the Italian GT Championship is ready to get underway with the Sprint series that will run its opener this weekend in Monza.
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The season of the restart and of the new course of the Italian GT Championship is about to begin with a signal of optimism and 34 entered cars. Coming the day after tomorrow, the circuit of Monza will stage the much-awaited event that not only marks the restart of Italian GT racing, but that highlights the desire of the whole motorsport world to resume its activity after twelve difficult months of the pandemic. The high number of entered lineups in the Sprint series involves all the classes with important numbers in GT3 but also in GT4 and GT Cup.

GT3: The highest class counts 16 entered cars, which is a record for the past editions. The most crowded fleet is that of Ferraris, as seven 488 GT3 Evo are ready to get on track. AFCorse will field three cars for Hudspeth-Schreiner, Vilander-S.Mann and Casè-P.Mann, Kessel Racing returns to the Italian series after a few years of absence with two cars driven by the Texan driver Stephen Earle and by Cuhadaroglu-Schirò. Easy Race will field one car for Greco-Crestani and RAM Autoracing will do the same giving its 488 to Luca Filippi and Alberto Lippi.

Three Lamborghini Huracan have been entered by Imperiale Racing and LP Racing. The Mirandola-based team will compete with Frassineti-Ghiotto and Cazzaniga-Llarena, while the team led by Luca Pirri will field Perolini-Cecotto.

Compared to the past two editions, Audi Sport Italia decided to double its participation entering two Audi R8 LMS, one for Postiglione-Mancinelli and one for Agostini-Ferrari. Nova Race will field two Honda NSX GT3, one for Guidetti-De Luca and one for Erwin Zanotti, who will compete alone.

BMW and Mercedes will line up one car each. The M6 GT3 of Ceccato Racing Team will be driven by Comandini-Zug, while the Israeli Bar Baruch, back in the Italian GT Championship, will share driving duties in the AMG GT3 with Luca Segù (Antonelli Motorsport).

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GT4: seven lineups will be present in the entry-level class. The reigning champion of the Sprint series, Ceccato Racing Team, will field its BMW M4 GT4 for Fascicolo-Neri (in the picture). The Porsche lot will include four Cayman, two fielded by Ebimotors, for Babini-Di Giusto and Arrigosi-De Castro, while Autorlando will be back after one year of absence with the two Caymans driven by Carboni-Romani and Cerati-Ghezzi. The entry list of GT4 will also comprise two Mercedes AMG GT4 of Nova Race, driven by the 18 years old Diego Di Fabio, who will share the wheel with the Endurance AM champion, Luca Magnoni, while the other will be driven by Ferri-Gagliardini.

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GT CUP: GT Cup, the class reserved to the single-make configured cars, is living a second youth with eleven entries that will renew the challenge among Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini. The three 488 Challenge Evo will be fielded by the reigning champions Easy Race (in the picture) for Francesca Linossi and Daniel Vebster. Two more cars will be fielded by SR&R for Demarchi-Risitano and team Best Lap for Pitorri-Simonelli.

Four Lamborghini Huracan ST and four Porsche GT3 Cup 4.0 will also be present. The first will be driven by the two lineups fielded by Bonaldi Motorsport, Jacone-Tempesta and Pijl-Vairani, the others will be driven by Mugelli-Pegoraro (Best Lap) and Dionisio-Barri (Team Italia). The Stuttgart’s coupes will be driven by Berton-Riva and La Mazza-Nicolosi of Krypton Motorsport, which will be joined by Carlo and Lino Curti (Tsunami RT) and by the 18 years old driver Alessandro Giardelli (Dinamic Motorsport).

PROGRAM AND TV COVERAGE: The first weekend of season 2021 will kick off on Friday with two free practice sessions (at 11.35 and 15.50), while the two qualifying sessions will be on Saturday (at 11.05 and 11.30). Race-1 (50 minutes + 1 lap) will get green lights in the afternoon (at 17.50), while race-2 (50 minutes + 1 lap) will be on Sunday at 15.30. The TV Programmation includes the live coverage of race-1 on Raisport (FreeView 57 and 58) and that of race-2 will be on ACISPORT TV (SKY 228), while Raisport will show the race recorded at 21.15. The live streaming coverage of the event will be available at www.acisport.it/CIGT, at the Facebook page of the championship www.facebook.com/CIGranTurismo and on the YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyhhEkzyTlUbzYCjBUMUDtQ.

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