Former Veloqx / Ferrari UK 360N-GT squad member, and Club Fiorano Instructor,
Allan Simonsen took the newly acquired ex-Rafanelli ALMS Ferrari 550 GT to a
victory in the opening round of the Australian Nations Cup GT Championship at
the Adelaide GP circuit on Sunday 21st March.
Melbourne based Mark Coffey Racing, who last year took the young Danish driver
to 14 victories from 15 starts with a Ferrari 360 Challenge, only received the car
from Italy 10 days before the event. Nations Cup, being a parity based category
meant that the 550 had to be converted from carbon to steel brakes and also
received 200 kilos of ballast!
Notwithstanding the inability to test, Allan qualified the car 2nd to 2003 Champion
Paul Stokell's Lamborghini Diablo. Stokell won the two Saturday preliminaries
after Allan had to recover from a brush with the wall fighting for the lead in race
one. In race two he made a crowd pleasing comeback to 2nd place again after
receiving a drive through penalty for a start infringement. In the main Sunday race
a bad start meant the green Ferrari was down to 3rd in the early laps but won a
thrilling race. The first three, Simonsen, Stokell (Lamborghini) and Nathan Pretty
(7 litre Monaro) were covered by 2.1 seconds. As well as taking the victory,
Simonsen's MCR Ferrari also set a new lap record, faster even than the V8
supercars racing on the same programme.
More details of this series can be followed on www.procar.com.au and Motors TV
on Satellite
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