2009 Season opener at Adria: declarations of the eve
Europa Corse will be at the start with a Dallara-FPT given to Michael Dalle Stelle, as
explains team manager Moreno Leonardi: "We reached an agreement with the
driver a few days ago and we will probably be a bit disadvantaged to
teams that tested long during winter. We will get the most out of our
competences to be competitive anyway: from this year we will count on the
technical direction of Eng. Pedersoli who, thanks to the experience
obtained also in F.1., will be able to give a determinant contribution".
Gloria Pro Team is awaited to the official debut (with Giulio and
Federico glorioso as drivers) as explained by team principal Enrico
Glorioso: "We founded this team by designing it in the more general
context of developing the career of young drivers. This year will be a
kind of setting in for us, to be at full regime starting from 2010".
Great attention for young drivers at RP Motorsport, that will line up the
very young Kevin Ceccon, fifteen-years-old. "We take on track a promising
driver with the objective of making him grow and acquire experience. A
second car is in our programmes later in the season, possibly with some
young talents interested in Formula 3".
Just a bit less than a day is left before the official
beginning of the 2009 season of the Italian Formula 3 Championship.
Tomorrow, Adria's circuit will start giving some initial verdicts on the
work achieved by all teams during winter tests.
The growth phase started last year with the adoption of new generation
single seaters and unique engines provided by Fiat Powertrain
Technologies Racing (FPT Racing) continues this year too, with 19 single
seaters waiting the green light, a third more than last year.
Lucidi Motors, winners of the latest two titles with Paolo Maria Nocera
in 2007 and Mirko Bortolotti in 2008, lines up three Dallara-FPT given to
Francesco Prandi, Giovanni Nava and to the rookie Sergio Campana. "I am
really pleased about the preparation work done" commented team owner
Gabriele Lucidi. "Everything is in place to race another season as
protagonists, even if the overall level is even higher than last year's.
Prandi and Campana run a lot of kilometres during tests, with Nava, on
the contrary, we reached an agreement in the last weeks only. Work done
last year will be a good starting point anyway".
Piercarlo Ghinzani, Team Ghinzani's team owner, is hopeful on his new
drivers, Marco Zipoli and Alessandro Cicognani: "We planned our
participation with Edoardo Piscopo, but at the last minute this was not
possible. We had several negotiations, also with foreign drivers, but we
decided to choose Zipoli because we believe in his capabilities and
because we wanted to be coherent with the project Filera Piloti Italia,
that we have been carrying on for several years now. I have good
expectations for Cicognani, who is at his second season in Formula 3 and
therefore has the right experience to aim at high level results".
Redemption desire is perceivable in Angelo Corbetta's words, team
principal of Team Minardi by Corbetta Competizioni, who will line up
three Dallara-FPT given to Salvatore Cicatelli, third in 2008 and
protagonist of the Ferrari F1 test at Fiorano, Michele Faccin and
Riccardo Cinti: "Last year we did not harvest what we hoped for and we
are ready to make up for it this year. Cicatelli is one of the most
promising young Italian drivers and he will surely be able to be a
protagonist, but I also have a lot of faith in the potentialities of
Faccin and Cinti".
Daniel Campos and Francesco Castellacci will have a come back full of
ambitions with
Prema Powerteam, as emerges from team principal Angelo Rosin's words: "We
have a lot of racing years on our backs, every week we are racing at some
European track but this does not take away emotions from us. Coming back
to a series that made us live unforgettable moments, F.3 Italy, is a
unique sensation. Unfortunately, the series experienced some problems in
mid nineties and the level decreased, as the number of drivers taking
part to it, and we were forced to look outside Italian borders. Now,
thanks to the good job done by CSAI we have the conditions to come back
working seriously and on valid bases. Tests done in the past few months
showed that we can be competitive, but as you say in football, summer's
friendly matches do not count. We will discover this weekend, at Adria,
the real value of our well prepared opponents, but our hearts hope to be
able to place Campos and Castellacci on the positions that count".
Enthusiasm for the comeback to the Italian championship from the words of
Cristiano Giardina, team manager of RC Motorsport, that will line up a
single seater driven by the Greek driver Stefanos Kamitsakis: "Coming
back to fight for the Italian title after several years is thrilling. I
believe in the revival of the series especially for the definitive
confirmation of the Ferrari test. This is certainly going to be a further
stimulus for drivers and I think we will live an extremely competitive
season. Kamitsakis will surely be able to fight with more experienced
drivers and we are sure we will have a lot of satisfaction from this
youngster. Unfortunately, at Adria we will race with only one car, but we
are working hard to line up a second car soon".
Moderate optimism within BVM-Target (Daniel Zampieri and Edoardo Liberati
drivers), as explained by team manager Giuseppe Mazzotti: "Everything
went fine during winter tests but for good luck I prefer not to say
anything. We will definitely do our best to take home a good result, we
will see on track the level of our opponents.
Technical novelties in terms of chassis, Alan Racing will in fact take
two Mygale M-08-FPT (with Pablo Sanchez-Lopez and Angelo Comi as drivers)
to their debut. "We always enjoy challenges and we enthusiastically
started this new project" team principal Alberto Locatelli declared. "The
potential of this car is huge and, as months will pass, we will get some
satisfactions. We were hoping to be able to line up three cars but we did
not have enough time to complete the third car in time for Adria; we will
complete it soon".
-credit: italia
