The 15th Italian GT Championship is at the starting blocks. The Italian series with the powerful GT cars has a long time tested format. The circuit of Imola is all set to house the 33 crews that will challenge each other from Friday to win the seven Italian titles, five Trophies and four National Cups up for grabs. The entry list of the opening rounds envisages for a very competitive season with prestigious teams, drivers and cars on track that will produce a highly spectacular and tight championship as tradition.

SUPER GT3: Twelve GT3 new generation cars entered the highest class that this year will award two Italian titles. The crews with both PRO drivers will contest the newly born Italian GT Super GT3 PRO Championship, that currently has six crews at the start. Treluyer-Ghirelli (Audi Sport Italia) will be on the Audi R8 LMS and will have to face the challenge of the Ferrari 488 driven by Malucelli-Cheever (Scuderia Baldini 27), reigning champions Venturi-Gai (Black Bull Swisse Team) and Niccolò Schirò who wil lbe alongside a driver still to be defined (Easy Race). The two Lamborghini Huracan of Agostini-Zampieri (Antonelli Motorsport) and Beretta-Frassineti (Ombra Racing) complete the PRO cars.

The Italian Gran Turismo Super GT3 will have six cars on track too: the three Lamborghini Huracans of Leo-Baruch (Petri Corse Motorsport), Cassarà-Gentili (Ombra Racing) and Veglia-Valente (Antonelli Motorsport), the Mercedes AMG GT3 driven by Pezzucchi-Pastorelli (Krypton Motorsport), the BMW M6 GT3 of Comandini-Cerqui (BMW Team Italia) and the Ferrari 488 of the Japanese Ishikawa Motoaki (AF Corse), who will compete alone.

GT3: After the last minute withdrawal of Benucci-Niboli (Ferrari 458 Italia-MP1 Corse) due to a bereavement in the Italian team, three cars will be present in Imola. Venerosi-Baccani (Ebimotors) will compete on the Porsche GT3R, while Del Castello-Colajanni will be on the Corvette Z06 R (Erreci Proracing); while Francesco La Mazza’s co-equiper on the Ferrari 458 Italia run by Easy Race is still to be defined.

SUPER GT CUP: The class reserved to the Lamborghini Huracan SuperTrofeo has nine lineups at the start. Vincenzo Sospiri Racing will defend the title won last year by Nicolas Costa with three crews, namely Jia Tong/Ortiz, Vainio-Tujula and Cazzaniga-D’Amico. Antonelli Motorsport will give its Huracans to Kasai-Basaz, Perolini-Alessandri and to a third crew still to be defined.

Two cars will be fielded by Imperiale Racing, one for the reigning champions of GT Cup Benvenuti-Demarchi and the other to a still unknown crew, while Petri Corse Motorsport will bring on track Trentin-Deodati.

GT CUP: Four cars will make it to the track in the single make-configured class. The three Porsche 997 will be driven by Di Leo-“Poppy” , Pisani-Palazzo (Siliprandi Racing) and La Mazza-Nicolosi (Ebimotors), as Giuseppe La Mazza will compete in two different classes in the same weekend. A Ferrari 458 Italia, will be fielded by CAAL Racing for Leonardo Baccarelli.

GT4: The entry level class has four entered cars. Two Porsche Cayman CS and two Ginetta G55. The Stuttgard’s cars will be driven by Sabino De Castro (Ebimotors) and Nicola Neri (Kinetic Racing), while the British cars will have Luca Magnoni and Gian Piero Cristoni at the wheel, both for Nova Race.

THE PROGRAMME: The opening weekend of 2017 will kick off on Saturday with two qualifying sessions (at local 8.30 and at 10), while the two race-1s will start at 12,40 (SGT Cup-GT Cup-GT4) and at 13.55 (SGT3-GT3). Races-2 will take place on Sunday at 13,55 (SGT3-GT3) and 15,55 (SGT Cup-GT Cup-GT4). All races will have the length of 48 minutes plus one lap and will go live on Rai Sport (SGT3-GT3) and AutomotoTV (SGT Cup-GT Cup-GT4), as well as in web streaming at www.acisport.it/CIGT.

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