FCS: Ferrari World Finals notes 2009-11-13

Valencia crowns Challenge champions

Cheste (Valencia), 13 November 2009 - Today the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli crowned with one race to go two new champions for the 2009 season at Valencia's Ricardo Tormo circuit, at the seventh and last round, where, as an exception, also the drivers from the North American single-marque's series participated. Scuderia Motor/Piacenza is celebrating Giorgio Sernagiotto, the driver from Treviso, who won the title in the Italian series of the Trofeo Pirelli, and the French duo Jean-Marc Bachelier and Yannick Mallegol, who just needed a third place today to win the Coppa Shell. But at the Spanish circuit, dressed in red for the Ferrari Finali Mondiali, there is more than just races: the jewels from the Shell Historic Challenge went onto the track for their free practice sessions and the qualifying, followed by eleven laboratory cars from the exclusive FXX Programme and eighteen historical single-seaters from the F1 Clienti department in Maranello.

In the Italian Trofeo Pirelli Giorgio Sernagiotto dominated the race, conquering victory and title ahead of Marco Mapelli (Rossocorsa) and Lorenzo Case (Motor/Piacenza), while amongst the gentlemen drivers in the Coppa Shell the new champion Stefano Gai (Rossocorsa) managed again to stay ahead of Massimo Mantovani (Motor/Malucelli) and Eugenio Amos (Ineco/Ram).

At the end of race 1 held by the participants in the European and North American series, victory in the European series of Trofeo Pirelli went Max Blancardi (Motor/Malucelli), crossing the line ahead of the Austrian Philipp Baron (Baron Service) and the Frenchman Nicolas Misslin (Stradale Automobile), while the British driver Oliver Morley (Motor/Malucelli), the Sweden Torbjorn Ekstrand (Autoropa) eand the new champion Jean-Marc Bachelier stood on the Coppa Shell podium. In the North American series Scott Tucker (Boardwalk Ferrari) crossed the line first ahead of Henri Richard (Ferrari of Silicon Valley) and Mark McKenzie (Ferrari of Houston).

In the conclusive Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge race, with grid A and B for cars with drum and disk brakes respectively, the fastest lap in the qualifying was driven for grid A by Sean Danaher with a 1038 Maserati 6CM, ahead of Gigi Baulino with a 1958 Maserati 250F and the leader in the overall standings Nicolas Zapata with a 1956 Ferrari 625 TR. In grid B the fastest lap was driven by Darius Ahrabian with a Ferrari F40 LM (1992), followed by Dieter Roschmann with a 512M (1970) and Christian Traber with a Ferrari 512 BBLM (1980).

Tomorrow, Saturday, 14 November 2009, another round of races and new free practice sessions with the single-seaters from the F1 Clienti department as well as with the cars from the exclusive FXX Programme will be held.

Tomorrow Sky Sport 3 will transmit the conclusive Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli races live: at 10:45am race 2 -- Europe + North America (repeat at 6pm) and race 2 at 2pm -- Italia (repeat at 7pm). On Sunday, 15 November, the same channel will transmit the Finali Mondiali Ferrari live as of 10am (Coppa Shell), at 1pm (Trofeo Pirelli) and at 3:30pm the final celebrations.

-credit: ferrari