Care Racing to ALMS with the Ferrari 550!

[SALEEN S7R]

Source:www.lmsr.net

Care Racing tells lmsr.net they will continue with the Ferrari 550 program through 2005 instead of the 575GTC. They are very motivated to run in the ALMS. Dominique continues, "In 2004, the Ferraris 550 GTS developed with Prodrive and owned by Care Racing have won the FIA championship for the second consecutive year with BMS Scuderia Italia and the first title of the LMES series with Larbre Competition. We will work during the winter on aerodynamics and tyres to make the F550 GTS even more performing for next year. We are actively looking for a solid American racing team to race our Ferrari in ALMS in 2005. I hope we succeed. As we told Don Panoz and Scott Atherton, any help towards this goal will be very much appreciated."...
With Brabham's experience in the 550...I'm thinking Krohn-Barbour might be a good fit?

This is excellent news, another works team set to join the ALMS for 2005 - well id call Care Racing (Prodrive) a works team IMO. Now if ACEMCO can get a bit more speed and reliabilty from the Saleen for next year combined with the Care Racing Ferrari 550s and GM Corvette C6R's we could have a fantastic GTS category in 2005.

[Dani Filth]

they needed the cars this year .. the C5 had a easy job (

[SALEEN S7R]

True. But better late than never eh? The 2004 season is almost over, lets look forward to 2005, with any luck the Ferrari 550s will still be able to take the fight to the Corvettes, lets not forget this year the cars were still faster in qualifying than the Corvettes, and that was with very little development since 2003. With the development that is planned the 550s should be able to continue to take the fight to the Corvettes for the near future.

[almzkid]

NO sponsors

NO team

Just like this year...next year will be no different without some dough

[SALEEN S7R]

Now u see thats where our opinions differ. The Ferrari 550 is already very well sorted car, Care Racing has stated it intends to sell cars to a team in the USA - hopefully Krohn Barbour, and any car that Krohn Barbour buys from Care Racing will have all the latest updates and development parts im sure. All Krohn Barbour need is 2 good drivers, and a decent tyre supplier.

Its not as though the car is like the ACEMCO Saleen which at the moment is under developed and suffers from poor reliabilty. Take a look at Labre, a very small team with not much in the way of a budget, and they won the LMES with a Prodrive built Ferrari 550 against some very well sorted cars, not least the Vitaphone entered Saleen S7R. If someone Krohn Barbour was taking on a new car, like the Murciealgo with very little budget I could see ur point. But this car is very well sorted.

[almzkid]

Michael was merely speculating that K-B might be a good fit. There is no evidence that they are actually looking at the car. If it beat the Vettes last year and no one bought one this year, why would next year be any different. The same agreement was in place this year, if anybody was interested Care would sell them race ready F550's, no one came up with the funds and it was a Lemans program only unfortunately.

[SALEEN S7R]

Come on, lets not play games. We each know that Krohn Barbour is the obvious choice, hes selling the Lambos and looking for another car for 2005, a proven car with a race pedigree. Who else do u suggest as obvious candidates? A new team? Hardly likely, a team switching from Grand Am? Cant see it happening either. And for all u know and I know Michael might well have some more inside information that he cannot make available to us offically.

The scenario will be differnt for 2005, u can bet Prodrive will be doing the development work spoken about in the press release, and not Care Racing themselves. Very little development happened this year - until Prodrive saw how well Corvette were doing in testing and **** themselves then more parts were hurridely developed for LM. During the off season new areodynamic parts will be developed as the press release has said, and the cars will be faster.

We all know Prodrive is faster than the Corvettes on pace, albeit a little more frail than the Corvettes. There is no reason though as to why any factory built Ferrari 550 cant beat one of the GM Corvettes, providing the cars have decent drivers. Oh and there is evidence that Prodrive are looking at the car, as announced in the press release.

[almzkid]

You are missing the point.

Prodrive is trying to rally up support for an ALMS 550 program. They tried the same thing this year and could not find any takers (teams).

Just because the Press release says they are looking for a team, doesn't mean they have found one. Lots of teams would love a couple F550's but no-one can afford them and I don't see that changing for next year.

[SALEEN S7R]

If Krohn Barbour can afford the lambourgini murciealgos then they can afford 2 ferrari 550s, especially when u consider they will be selling their Lambourgini murcielagos. If people like ACEMCO can afford cars like the Saleen S7R people can afford the 550s.

[tblincoe]

first of all lets get one thing straight, the ACEMCO saleen is by far the most reliable saleen out there. also, the 550s are being sold and developed by care racing development, not prodrive... prodrve is building and developing the aston martins. as for barbour, the 550 is an obvious fit: very fast and reliable car that can challenge the vettes at every round right out of the box. lets just hope he seizes this opportunity. by the way, who out there is gonna buy his lambos?

[SALEEN S7R]

Originally posted by tblincoe
by the way, who out there is gonna buy his lambos?

Perhaps one of the GT class teams looking to make the step up to the GTS class? Or perhaps one of the teams from one of the ALMS feeder series? (Which I know nothing about so wont comment). I sure hope someone buys them, and runs them in the ALMS. The LMES/FIA GT has enough GTS cars at the moment and the ALMS could really do with the variety IMO.

[Shady#30]

You'd have to be crazy to buy those Lambos, whether you're a GT team moving up or a support series team just getting in. If KB couldn't find success with them, I doubt anybody else is going to. Unless Lambo is going to promise (or should I say, guarentee) whoever buys them some amazing factory support, I wouldn't expect to see the Murcielagos in the ALMS again. I do hope KB picks up the Ferrari's though!

[Bramzel]

Originally posted by SALEEN S7R
If Krohn Barbour can afford the lambourgini murciealgos then they can afford 2 ferrari 550s, especially when u consider they will be selling their Lambourgini murcielagos. If people like ACEMCO can afford cars like the Saleen S7R people can afford the 550s.

You wouldn't say that if you knew what's asked for those cars Let's just say that the Murcielago is quite a cheap deal compared to a Prodrive 550 And a Prodrive 550 is cheap compared to a 575 GTC...

[tblincoe]

i dont think anyone in the ACO format will purchase the lambos from barbour considering the problems barbour had with them. what would make sense is an FIA-GT team buying them (i.e. Zwans) and converting them to FIA-GT specs (although this might not be needed next year if the rules are unified) and running them in 2005.

[Fogelhund]

This is nothing more then idle speculation.

[tblincoe]

yeah fogelhound its called a discussion board, welcome...

what was that comment for?

[BSchneiderFan]

Ferraris would make sense for Dick Barbour; unless he wants to try to get back into prototypes.

(OT a bit, but whatever happened to Alex Job's plans to graduate to prototypes?)

[SALEEN S7R]

Originally posted by tblincoe
yeah fogelhound its called a discussion board, welcome...

Yeah, I dont think Fogelhund quite gets it lol.

[FIRE]

Originally posted by BSchneiderFan
(OT a bit, but whatever happened to Alex Job's plans to graduate to prototypes?)

They wait until Porsche will make a prototype comeback. (wishfull thinking )