Our friends at Ferrari are having a pretty good year in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. They’re ten points behind Audi on the GTD Manufacturers Standings. Simultaneously, Scuderia Corsa’s Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan are currently the top duo in that class. Risi Competizione narrowly missed a podium at the Northeast Grand Prix, but Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander are still in the top five of GTLM drivers. We are so excited for this weekend’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase.
IMSA Ferraris Take On Road America
- Scuderia Corsa’s Balzan and Nielsen lead GT-Daytona championship
- Fisichella and Vilander chasing another Risi Competizione victory at Road America
August 2, 2016 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.) – Road America is one of the favorite circuits of the Ferrari drivers in the IMSA SportsCar Championship. A fixture on the North American sports car calendar since it first opened in 1955, it’s combination of high speed corners, technical corners, long straightaways and elevation changes make it a true test of driver and car.
This weekend’s IMSA race marks the first time that the turbocharged Ferrari 488 will compete at Road America. Risi Competizione has delivered Ferrari to victory at Road America on three occasions – in 2007 with the Ferrari F430, and in 2011 and 2014 with the Ferrari 458 Italia. Drivers of the no. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander, will look to repeat the same kind of performance they had at the previous race at Lime Rock where they led the GTLeMans class throughout the contest.
In the GT-Daytona class, the drivers of the no. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3, Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen, lead the championship with four races remaining in the season. Their championship lead was reduced after the previous race at Lime Rock, when Nielsen was the victim of contact and repairs put the car well down the order. However, they hold a 13-point lead in the championship with two wins and two additional podiums this season.
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The IMSA Northeast Grand Prix was shown live on Saturday, July 23 at 3:00 PM ET on FOX. Qualifying was streamed live on Friday, July 22 at 4:25 PM ET on IMSA.tv. Here are IMSA’s official YouTube videos in case you missed them: