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www.QV500.com - Ferrari 550 Part 9: 550 GT ‘Prodrive’ - 2001 Season |
 107617, Hungaroring 3 Hours |
Prodrive's beautifully engineered 550 GT made its competitive debut at the Hungaroring 3 Hour race in June 2001. This was Round 6 of the FIA GT Championship, a series whose top class was dominated by several highly developed Chrysler Viper GTS-R's and the works-backed Lister Storm's. Driven by Alain Menu and Rickard Rydell, the Prodrive Allstars 550 GT qualified an impressive fifth for the race and made a strong start that saw Menu briefly running third in chassis 107617. However, the Swiss ace subsequently dropped back to seventh, struggling with an awkward rear set up and eventually retired after 19 laps, the team citing fuel starvation caused by an electronic glitch as the reason. |
| The car had nevertheless shown great potential and skipping the gruelling Spa Francorchamps 24 Hours meant Prodrive would have time to carry out a little more development ahead of Round 8, the A1 Ring 3 Hours. This paid off when an engine fire caused the lead Lister Storm to retire and allowed Menu and Rydell through to score a historic outright win in only their second race - Ferrari's first GT victory in nearly thirty years. Round 9 of the championship was held at the Nurburgring where, after accumulating a sizeable lead and seemingly heading for back to back victories, Rydell incurred a 10-second stop go penalty by crossing a pit line that effectively took him out of contention. The team nevertheless still managed a fine third behind a Lister and Viper. At the Jarama 3 Hour race, a strong drive from fourth on the grid and slick pit strategy saw Prodrive secure a second outright win in what was the penultimate FIA GT race of the year, this despite running success ballast and bigger air restrictors. Round 11, the season finale at Estoril, was a disappointing end to the year though with chassis 107617 spinning out. Despite this unfortunate demise, two wins and a third from five races, one mechanical DNF and another caused by driver error was a very impressive record for the English outfit. |
 107617, Nurburgring 3 Hours |
However, the season wasn't quite over for Prodrive who entered a new ACO-specification 550 (chassis 108418) for November's Petit Le Mans, a showpiece finale to the American Le Mans Series held at Road Atlanta over ten hours. Rydell, Kox and Duez were understandably a little slower than regulars like Chevrolet's works-backed Pratt & Miller-prepared Corvette C5-R's and the hugely exotic Saleen S7-R. Retiring after 103 laps with mechanical problems, this first ALMS / GTS-class outing for the Prodrive 550 GT would be followed by an entry in the 2002 Sebring 12 Hours as further preparartion for their all-important Le Mans 24 Hours attack in June - a race Prodrive were determined to win. |
Date |
Series |
Race | Drivers | Team | Chassis |
Result |
01/07 |
FIA 6 |
Hungaroring 3 Hours | Menu / Rydell | Prodrive | 107617 |
DNF |
26/08 |
FIA 8 |
A1-Ring 3 Hours | Kox / Rydell | Prodrive | 107617 |
1st |
09/09 |
FIA 9 |
Nurburgring 3 Hours | Kox / Rydell | Prodrive | 107617 |
3rd |
30/09 |
FIA 10 |
Jarama 3 Hours | Menu / Rydell | Prodrive | 107617 |
1st |
21/10 |
FIA 11 |
Estoril 3 Hours | Menu / Rydell | Prodrive | 107617 |
DNF |
06/11 |
ALMS 8 |
Road Atlanta Petit Le Mans | Rydell / Kox / Duez | Prodrive | 108418 |
DNF |
 108418, Road Atlanta Petit Le Mans |