Risi Competizione
Risi Competizione is an American motorsport team that is active in sports car racing . Team owner is Giuseppe Risi .
history
Foundation as a partnership
The team was created in 1997 from the collaboration between Giuseppe Risi and Doyle Racing . Doyle Racing was already active in motorsport and used Riley & Scott Mk III chassis for its assignments in the IMSA GT series . The team wanted to replace these and used Risi for this, as he had excellent contacts to the Italian manufacturer of the Ferrari 333 SP through its Ferrari branch in Houston .
Thus, from the 1998 season on, the team competed as Doyle Risi Racing with a Ferrari and was able to build on the success of Doyle Racing immediately. In the IMSA GT series, the team achieved two victories, took second and third place in the drivers' championship through Wayne Taylor and Eric van de Poele and won the team championship. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans , Doyle-Risi won the WSC class and was eighth overall. After the end of the IMSA GT, the team had to make new deployment plans for the 1999 season. Initially, the team starts at the Daytona 24-hour race and finished second in the overall standings, two laps behind. This was followed by an engagement in the newly founded American Le Mans Series (ALMS), fourth place at the Grand Prix of Atlanta on Road Atlanta was the best result of the season.
Risi takes over the team
In 2000 Giuseppe Risi completely took over the team and changed the name to Risi Competizione . The team continued to use a Ferrari 333 SP, but switched to the Grand-Am Sports Car Series . Twice this season a second place could be achieved, in the team championship the team reached fourth place. 2001 started again with the Daytona 24-hour race, but this time the Ferrari did not finish. The team then decided not to continue racing and developed a racing version of the Ferrari 360 Modena over the years 2001 and 2002. The 2002 season began, however, with a partnership with Rand Racing , together they put two Lola B2K / 40 / Nissan in the Grand-Am. Since the SRPII class was not very strong, it was easy for the team to achieve class victory in every race. The driver and team championships were the result of this partnership. At the end of the year, the built-up Ferrari 360 Modena was used in two parallel races in the ALMS.
In 2003 Risi came back to Daytona to contest the 24-hour race, this time with the Ferrari 360 Modena. The car beat all the prototypes in the race and finished second overall behind the Porsche from The Racer's Group . Then it went back to the ALMS, where Risi contested the entire season with two vehicles and in the end took second place in the team championship. At the first appearance at Le Mans with a GT car, Risi finished eighth in the GT class. The following year Risi achieved the first class win in the ALMS at the New England Grand Prix in Lime Rock Park , but could only occupy fifth place in the team standings in the overall standings.
Championships in the ALMS
After a season with the non- ACO- compliant Maserati MC12 in the ALMS under the team name Maserati Corse , Risi Competizione became really successful in 2006 . With the two works drivers Mika Salo and Jaime Melo as well as the new Ferrari 430 GTC, the team clinched four class wins in the ALMS and was able to win the team championship for the first time. The team won the title again the following year , this time with eight class wins over the season. After Le Mans , the team also returned where a vehicle in partnership with Krohn Racing was able to enter the second place in the GT2 class.
In the following years Risi could not win any more titles, the Ferrari 430 was meanwhile one of the oldest vehicles in the GT field. In the years 2008 , 2009 and 2010 , the team clinched two class wins in the ALMS every year, and at best came second in the championship. However, the success came at Le Mans. In 2008 the team celebrated a class win for the first time since 1998, in 2009 the victory was defended, in 2010 they were eliminated before the end of the race.
Break and re-entry into GT sport
From the 2011 season , Ferrari presented its customer teams with a successor to the 430, the Ferrari 458 Italia. Risi again fielded two cars in the GT class of the ALMS, but could only win one season win at Road America and was only fifth in the team classification, the worst position for the team since 2004. Risi contested the 24-hour race in 2012 -Races of Daytona in cooperation with American Canadian Racing and did not drive any more races after that, because due to the changes in American GT racing, they wanted to wait and see what the new rules and classifications would look like. In Daytona, fifth place in the GT class was achieved with the Ferrari 458 Italia.
For the 2013 season Risi returned to the ALMS and contested the year again with a Ferrari 458. A win in Virginia and fourth place in the annual standings were on the credit side. In 2014 Risi will compete in the newly founded United SportsCar Championship .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Risi Competizione to return to ALMS in 2013 ( Memento from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )