With the recent second place in the 9 Hours of Kyalami, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Come Ledogar became champions of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, completing an extraordinary season for the standard-bearers and cars of Maranello. In 2021 the world of GT racing was the basin of greatest satisfaction for the Italian colors in motorsport, with the Ferrari 488s that have collected successes in the most famous and competitive endurance races and championships in the world. The year that has just ended can only fuel the anticipation and interest of Ferrari fans in the Hypercar project scheduled for 2023, with which Ferrari will try to regain that overall victory at Le Mans that Maranello has been missing since 1965.
Meanwhile, the Reds continued to enrich the roll of honor with several class hits in the French classic. In 2021 Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Come Ledogar drove the AF Corse 488 GTE to victory in the 24 hours of Le Mans. Together with the points collected with the successes in the 8 hours of Portimao and Bahrain, at the end of the year the couple Pier Guidi-Calado became world champion pilots in GTE-Pro, alongside the triumph in GTE-Am of Alessio Rovera , Francois Perrodo and Nicklas Nielsen and the constructors’ championship. The world championship victory in the WEC came at the end of an intense duel that lasted for the entire span of the championship with the Porsche of Kevin Estre and Neel Jani, which unfortunately ended with the controversial episode of Pier Guidi’s rear-end collision against the rival car in a frantic dubbing phase at ten minutes from the conclusion of the final race, determining Ferrari success in the World Championship. The discussed final does not, however, obscure what else the Cavallino won in 2021. In the 24 hours of Spa the 488 GT3 Evo brought Ferrari back to absolute success in the Ardennes marathon, expected from 2004. In what is the biggest GT event of the year in terms of quality and quantity of entrants, a real all star race, Pier Guidi, Ledogar and Nielsen once again prevailed. The rich haul of points accumulated in the Belgian 24 hours led to the conquest of two of the main championships on the international motoring scene: the Endurance GT World Challenge Europe and the Intercontinental GT Challenge. In 2021, the Maranello house finally established itself in theEuropean Le Mans Seriesagain with the Iron Lynx colors but this time with Miguel Molina, Matteo Cressoni and Rino Mastronardi.
The Ferrari successes on the various racing stages of the international scene share a common denominator, personified by Alessandro Pier Guidi. The Italian was a member of the winning crews in the 24 Hours of Spa and Le Mans, in the Endurance World Championship, in the GT World Challenge Europe and in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, which is accompanied by 2nd place in the 24 Hours of Daytona last January. together with James Calado, Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra. Pier Guidi’s performance in 2021 does not arouse admiration only among Italian supporters, but it exalts every motorsport enthusiast. It’s hard not to get excited for example overtaking in the wet at Spa outside Blanchimont nine minutes from the conclusion of the Belgian 24 hours and valid for the victory. Or the rhythm and consistency expressed at each stint, on some occasions gaining handfuls of seconds over rivals, as in the case of the victorious appearance in the 4 hours of Monza of the European Le Mans Series. Alessandro Pier Guidi is now one of the main candidates to drive the Maranello Hypercar from 2023. Considering the equally high level of suspects to get on the Hypercars and LMDhs of the strong competition, there is something to be impatient with in view of the near future.
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