Motoring. The pontalpino is loaded. At the weekend the first race with a Ferrari of JMW Motorsport
the pilot
A new team to fulfill the dream of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car season starts again with the pontalpine driver Andrea Fontana as protagonist.
This week is the first weekend of racing on the Barcelona track, with Fontana having formalized the signing of the contract with a new team. The young driver will race in the premier category of Gran Turismo, the GTE (what was once called GT2) of the European Le Mans Series with a Ferrari 488 GTE car from the English team JMW Motorsport, a historic line-up that has already won the 24 Hours most famous in the world in 2017.
«I am very happy with this possibility», comments Fontana, «I have decided to accept this proposal to carry on my project of getting to race the 24 Hours of Le Mans by 2022. This team can help me achieve my goal, I want to show off as much as possible and play the opportunity that was given to me to the full ».
In fact, JMW Motorsport has a wild card to race with a car at Le Mans, at the same time the possibility of accessing next year’s race remains plausible, finishing in the first two positions of the championship that will start this weekend.
“I will race in the GTE category, thus facing a new experience for me in what is the highest expression of Gran Turismo”, underlines Fontana while he is grappling with the first tests on the track, “in this category we find Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin , and we will take to the track together with other prototypes of different categories, for a total of about 45 cars competing at the same time ».
The rider from Belluno last season ran in a lower category, the LMP3, this leap upwards is therefore an opportunity not to be missed.
“I immediately accepted the proposal received through Ferrari to race with this team”, confirms Andrea, “it is also an opportunity to find new sponsors, perhaps from Belluno, who believe in me and who can fulfill the dream of accompanying me to Le Mans in future”.
We therefore start on Friday with free practice in Barcelona, on Saturday space for other track tests and qualifying, and finally on Sunday the 4-hour race, starting at 11 am and arriving around 3 pm. Fontana will race together with 2 other drivers .
“I’ve never raced with this car and for me it’s all new”, explains the Belluno, “the main difficulty so far is that the car does not have ABS, and is much more aerodynamic and faster than the GT cars I always driven. In the race we will certainly pay for the fact that we have not done any pre-season tests unlike the others who already have many kilometers behind them. We also need to get familiar with the new tire compound and therefore with a new setup. There is certainly a lot of work to do », Fontana comments,« I have to try to understand the machine as well as possible. The goal for Sunday is to reach the top 5, I take this debut as the chance to gain experience and to be ready for the next races ».
So let’s meet on Sunday, in Spain, with the first checkered flag of a new and exciting season. –
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