Season five of the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli UK officially opened at Snetterton. The Norfolk circuit has always been a fixture on the calendar of the UK one-make series, which runs on some of the country’s most iconic racetracks.
Grand Chelem. Andrew Morrow was the real star of the weekend. The Northern Irish driver, who only received his racing licence last year, opened 2023 in style with a double-win. Morrow did not just win but achieved a “Grand Chelem”, also known as a Grand Slam: in motorsport jargon, this means claiming pole position, fastest lap and victory over a single weekend, leading from the first to the last lap. He did this in Race-1 and Race-2. Moreover, during qualifying to decide the Race-2 starting order, Morrow took pole in 1’51"448, breaking the Ferrari Challenge UK lap record for the Snetterton circuit.
Comeback. Last year, Carl Cavers, who competed in the second leg of the championship in the Coppa Shell, made a name for himself with three wins out of four races. This year, promoted to the top class, he fulfilled expectations and was one of the stars of the opening round. Despite missing Qualifying 1 due to a car problem, in Race-1 Cavers moved up fourteen places from the back row of the line-up to finish an incredible third. In Race-2, he bolstered his position in the standings by taking second place.
499P. New faces, but more besides. When a championship begins, people are eager to learn about the new drivers who will battle it out on the track but also to see the new liveries. At the Snetterton opener, one of these was Graham De Zille’s number 19 Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo. In choosing his car’s colours and design, he drew inspiration from the 499P, the Prancing Horse’s Le Mans Hypercar, competing in the FIA WEC championship at Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium over the same days.
Technologies. The Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo’s “in-car marshalling” system made its historic Ferrari Challenge debut at the Snetterton track: it consists of a monitor that gives the drivers a real-time view of the situation on the track, reproducing the colours of the flags displayed during the various sessions.