Ferrari double in Pro-Am at Zandvoort

A splendid one-two from the Ferrari 488 GT3 crews of Rinaldi Racing and AF Corse at the end of the second Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe race held today at the Zanvoort circuit. The two Ferraris disputed two very different races before culminating in the top two podium places, joined by the car of HB Racing team, first in the Am class. In the opening stages of the race David Perel, aboard Rinaldi Racing’s 488 GT3, disentangled himself well from the pack, rising through the order two positions up to tenth, hot on the heels of Marciello. The South African, second in the Pro-Am class, turned out a solid and constant performance. The second Ferrari protagonist in Pro-Am, courtesy of Andrea Bertolini, struggled to gain positions but had made it to twenty-first place by the time the window for the mandatory pit stops reshuffled the field. Thirty minutes before the chequered flag, leader Scholze handed over to Triller, while both Perel and Bertolini held out on the track the maximum time possible. Perel made his stop with some 26 minutes to run, imitated thereafter by Bertolini. Salikhov, having climbed aboard the Rinaldi Racing car, took the lead in the class in fifteenth overall position, breaking away from Ricci, while Machiels moved his Ferrari up to third place in Pro-Am. The AF Corse driver took advantage of the hesitancy of the Mercedes of AKKA ASP Team to overtake it on the lap 26. From that point until the chequered flag, the race offered no further thrills in the class, but saw the splendid showing of Rinaldi Racing’s 488 GT3, driven by Rinat Salikhov and David Perel, rewarded with a second season triumph and its AF Corse sister car, courtesy of Andrea Bertolini and Louis Machiels following home. In the Am class, HB Racing’s Ferrari crossed the finish-line in first place, extending its unbeaten run yet further.