Ready for a new round of the Ferrari challenge

Pirelli is ready to take to the track on the legendary Daytona circuit together with Ferrari. The second American round of the Ferrari Challenge, the one-make championship of the Prancing Horse that runs on P Zero tires, will be hold next weekend.

This is a very important year for both brands: the Ferrari Challenge celebrates its thirty seasons (all raced on Pirelli tires) while the long P has recently celebrated its 150 years of history, over 70 of which spent alongside the Prancing Horse brand. It was March 12, 1947, when Enzo Ferrari presented the Ferrari 125 S: the first model built by the new Italian manufacturer, fitted with Pirelli tires from day one.

Since then, the bond between the two Italian brands has become indissoluble, and we find it both on the road, with the most prestigious models of the Cavallino with Pirelli tires, and on the track, where the P Zeros fit both the racing cars of the brand in F1 as well as the GT cars of the Ferrari Challenge.

And coming back to the Ferrari Challenge, this weekend XXXX Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo cars will be ready for the green flag on the iconic Daytona circuit, with many famous faces and champions of the past racing together. As always, the veterans will be joined by several newcomers, fresh from graduates from the Corso Pilota program: new competitors eagerly waiting to show their talent.

The first round of the American one-make Ferrari series, at COTA, offered already a glimpse into the open battle that we are going to see in this year's championship.

Marc Muzzo (Ferrari of Ontario) took the overall win in the Trofeo Pirelli. The first step of the podium of the Trofeo Pirelli AM was taken by Samantha Tan (Ferrari of Tampa Bay). Brian Kaminskey (Ferrari of Long Island) took his first win in the Ferrari Challenge championship since his 2018 for the Coppa Shell, while Paul Kiebler (Ferrari of Central New Jersey) took his first win in the series in a very competitive Coppa Shell AM category .

After Daytona, the Ferrari Challenge will held to Watkins Glen International track, from May 18-22. The series will then return to Canada, on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, alongside the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix before the event at the Indianapolis circuit, from 13 to 17 July. The sixth and final round on US soil is scheduled for September 7-11 at Sonoma Raceway.

Not just Challenge

Alongside an exceptional grid of participants, the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli continues to grow thanks to the Club Challenge program, which expands the offer thanks to the opportunity to drive Ferrari Challenge cars of every era.

During the weekend in Daytona, XXX customers will drive the series cars on the track, enjoying the same hospitality and assistance as the single-make drivers.
On the other hand, dedicated track sessions for the eight participants of the first "Regional Event" of Competizioni GT Club, six of which will be able to exploit the enormous power and optimal aerodynamic load of the Modified 488 GT.

A HISTORY OF SUCCESSES LONG 30 YEARS

On the Daytona circuit, Ferrari will celebrate the birthday of its single-make championship.

The Ferrari Challenge is the longest-running single-marque series of its type. Its story begins in autumn 1992 on the Mugello track when the Ferrari Challenge is officially presented together with the car that will be the star of the series, the 348 Challenge, in TB and TS versions.

The championship will arrive in North America as early as 1994; in 1995 it will be the turn of Japan and in 2012 the championship expands its borders to Asia Pacific.

Since then, the most spectacular and famous circuits in the world have hosted almost 900 races, with more than 1000 drivers who have alternated at the wheel of the various models that have made the fortune of the single-make, such as the F355 Challenge (1995), the 360 Challenge ( 2000), the F430 Challenge (2006), the 458 Challenge (2010) followed by its Evo version (2014), up to the 488 Challenge (2016) and the current 488 Challenge Evo, presented during the 2019 World Finals at Mugello.

Today the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli is a reality that is spread over three continental series (Europe, North America, Asia Pacific) and a national one (United Kingdom), allowing the participating drivers to compete in four categories - Trofeo Pirelli and Trofeo Pirelli Am, Coppa Shell and Coppa Shell Am - in which they are divided according to performance and skills at the wheel to always guarantee entertainment and fun on the track.

Over the course of these thirty years, Pirelli has exclusively equipped the cars participating in the Ferrari Challenge, developing specific tires for this series, demonstrating once again that the two brands are united not only by nationality, but also by the passion for performance and speed.