Spa-Francorchamps, 24th June 2006

The track action got underway today at the Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium) circuit for the Ferrari Racing Days, the event which this weekend sees rounds of the European Ferrari Challenge Pirelli Trophy and the Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge, the latter being a series for historic Prancing Horse cars, as well as being open to Maseratis. Worth noting too, the first ever showing in Europe of the FXX, a very high performance model of which 29 have been built exclusively for track use. Also taking place, untimed laps from historic Maranello single-seaters run by the F1 Clienti department.

The one-make Challenge has seen the debut of the new F430 this year, alongside some 360 Modenas, which can compete in the championship for one more year and today, they had their first races of the weekend.
The main Pirelli Trophy category saw victory go to Ange Barde (Modena Cars Racing,) the Frenchman crossing the line ahead of Belgium's Frederic Bouvy (team Baron) and Holland's John Bosch (Barron Racing / Kroymans.)
As for the gentlemen drivers in the Shell Cup, Switzerland's Ettore Contini (Kessel Racing) took top honours, beating fellow countryman Francois Labhardt (Modena Motors) and Monaco's Philippe Prette (Auto Palace / Star Rent Competition.)
In the separate category for the 360 Modena, victory went to Germany's Bjorn Grossmann (Autohaus Gohm / G2 Racing.)

Tomorrow is the main day of the event and the action gets underway at 9.50, with the Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge cars first on track.