The LMGTE Am class has a new face among the drivers this weekend with the addition of Ferrari driver Davide Rigon to the No.81 8Star Motorsport Ferrari 458 Italia entry.
The 27-year-old Italian has had a great deal of success in single-seaters, racing in GP2, World Series by Renault and Superleague Formula (winning the title in 2008 and 2010), but he has – until now – relatively little experience in GT racing.
“This year I am doing the Blancpain Endurance Series with a Ferrari GT3 car,” he explains, “and we are leading the championship so that is going well. Here will be a new experience for me as there are GTE Pro cars, GTE Am as well as LMP1 and LMP2. We will see after the first practice how much I have to watch the mirrors! For sure I’d like to concentrate my car and try to do the best for the team.
I’m really impressed with the organisation of the championship and it’s nice to see the professionalism and so many good drivers here on the grid – some of the best drivers in the world I would say.”
Rigon has at AF Corse – the Championship-winning Italian team which works with 8Star to operate the No.61 entry – some of the most experienced team mates in GT Racing: Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander, as well as Rui Aguas in the 8Star Motorsports entry. He has taken lots of advice from them about the weekend ahead.
“They have all told me just to concentrate on the mirrors! With the formula cars I’ve driven until now I normally only have to look forward but now I have to look back too. There are a lot of cars with different speeds. After practice we’ll have a meeting to work together and see. I’m very happy to meet my team mates Rui Aguas and Enzo Potolicchio, and they are going well in the championship so I’d like to help them with that.
“I haven’t been to Interlagos before but I’ve been on the simulator at Ferrari and did the track walk yesterday and it looks really nice. The elevation changes are bigger than they look on the television but we’ll see where we are after the practice.”
Fiona Miller
