Filed under: Motorsports, Coupe, Ferrari, Racing
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On any given Sunday, you can expect to find a Ferrari 458 Italia racecar screeching around one or more circuits around the world.
Unsurprisingly, Maranello is serious about challenging the Porsche 911 for shear proliferation in sports car racing. That’s why the mid-engined GT has already spawned Challenge, GT2 and GT3 racing versions, and has now bred one more for the Grand Am series. Developed by Ferrari’s go-to racing garage, Michelotto, this latest competition 458 has just undergone its initial shakedown at the company’s on-site Fiorano test track at the hands of Jamie Melo (who’s driven the previous F430 GT2 to two consecutive class wins at Le Mans and class titles in the American Le Mans Series and FIA GT Championship) and Maurizio Mediani (who just happened to have been our instructor at the Alfa Romeo driving school at Varano).
In compliance with the American series’ regulations, the engine has actually been detuned from 562 horsepower in stock street-going trim to 500 for track duty, thanks in part to a 48-millimeter restrictor plate and an 8,000 rpm rev limiter. The aerodynamics are also reworked compared to other racing versions, the spec Continental tires are of a particularly hard compound, and the suspension has been beefed up to deal with the higher collision rate in American racing.
In other words, the 458 Grand Am may be the slowest racecar in the lineup. Of course, that’s not an issue (it won’t be going up against its own stablemates, after all), the question is whether it will prove faster than the other cars on the Grand Am grid. Follow the jump for the press release and scope out the images in our gallery for more.Continue reading Ferrari rolls out latest 458 Italia Grand Am racer
Ferrari rolls out latest 458 Italia Grand Am racer originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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