Maranello, 28th July 2006

Pole position for the Ferrari F430 GTC crewed by Kinch/Kirkaldy/Franchitti (Scuderia Ecosse) in the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours in Belgium, the fourth round of the 2006 FIA GT championship, which gets underway at 16h00 tomorrow, Saturday 29 July. The other top places in the GT2 class, from second to sixth are also occupied by the sister cars of the AF Corse, GPC Sport and JMB Racing teams, ahead of Porsche and Spyker cars. In the GT1 category, fastest time in qualifying went to the crew of Lemeret/Deletraz/Piccini/Faessler (Aston Martin) who outpaced the Maserati of Vosse/Davies/Biagi.

Also this weekend, the Prancing Horse is participating in the return to racing at the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit in France, with its Ferrari Racing Days event, where over 300 Granturismo cars belonging to the marque's customers will parade on the same race card as competitors in the European Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge, which since 1999 has also been open to historic Maseratis and the Ferrari Challenge Pirelli Trophy.



In the main category of the one-make series, which features the new F430, France's Ange Barde (Modena Cars Racing) arrives at Le Castellet as leader, with Dutchman John Bosch (Baron Racing/Kroymans) and Ireland's Michael Cullen (Rossocorsa) in second and third places respectively. Currently leading the Shell Cup for gentlemen drivers is the German Dennis Huebner (Baron Service.) Among the 360 Modenas, which can still compete for this year alongside the F430, the points table is headed by Germany's Ralf Schaefer (Lueg Sportivo.)

Racing at the French track gets underway tomorrow at 9 o'clock with the second timed session for sports-prototypes and historic GTs, fitted with disc brakes (grid C) in the Historic Challenge.