Photos and Story by Alessandro Gerelli
The Ferrari 512 BB LMs of Sordi and Traber in Saturday’s race.
The first weekend of April witnessed the second edition of the Mugello Historic Festival, held on the Ferrari racing track near Florence.
Many races were on the program including the Lurani FIA Formula Junior, GP Masters (historic formula one), GT and Sport Endurance Master, Proto 70s (prototypes of years 70s), GT 90s and last but not least the European Ferrari Historic Challenge.
This was one of the first events of the 2008 season and the quality of cars was excellent but in some of the classes, the number of participants was relatively small.
Not so, however, for the Formula junior class which was very common in Europe and Italy and many Italian drivers are still racing with these small cars: the class was the most crowded with more than 25 participants and a huge variety of cars (Lotus, Brabham, Lola, Techno, Taraschi, Stanguellini, etc).
In the GT and Sport endurance events, there were many Jaguars, Austin Healey and other English cars, but few Italians: the well-known Ferrari Breadvan of Max Werner, racing both this class and the Ferrari Historic Challenge, a very elegant Ferrari 250 Lusso coming from Portugal, an Abarth Simca 2000 from Germany and a nice Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ from Switzerland.
The Ferrari Formula One have their own racing program, but in the Formula One master race only two Ferraris were present: both 312T one with 12 as racing number just to recall the Lauda era.
In the Proto 70s series, an Abarth SE021 and an Osella PA5 were the only two Italians and in the World Sportscar and Sports racing masters saw only a Ferrari 712, while in the GT90s revival three Ferraris (355 Challenge, F40 and 550 Maranello) were entered.
In the Ferrari Historic Challenge I have seen as usual many interesting cars, but apparently very few new entries. On the other hand, the number of the 512BB LMs is increasing. The 512BBs fought for the victory with the 312PB very hard, but Laidlaw’s 312PB was been able to win both races.
While in grid B as usual the Maseratis were very fast and well prepared: Laidlaw with a 250S and M. Davis with a 250 SI of 1956 won the two races
As usual the organization and the Ferrari hospitality have been perfect.
The Ferrari 312PB of Irvine Laidlaw and the 512 BB LM of Paul Knapfield dueled for the entire race of the Grid C Historic Challenge.
The Italian P. Masselli was fifth with his Ferrari 308 GTB.
The Dino 206S of the Swede L. Wramell.
G. Kroymans’ Ferrari 250 GTO.
Ferrari 250LM of C. Monteverde.
M. Werner’s Ferrari 250 GT berlinetta “Breadvanâ€.
The Ferrari 275 GTB of P. Perego.
Maserati 250 F of P. Heuberger winner of both races for grid A (he was the only participant) and the Ferrari 500 MD TR of G. Galeazzi.
1959 Ferrari Tdf , P. Haas.