Imperiale Racing closes the season in a month at the 6 Hours of Jeddah

It will be at the 6 Hours of Jeddah, the last round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Endurance Cup, that Imperiale Racing will close its racing season. Ahead of the Saudi Arabian appointment scheduled between Thursday 28 and Saturday 30 November, the team from Mirandola (MO) will field a Lamborghini Huracàn GT3 EVO2 at the start, which will compete in the Gold class.

Three outstanding drivers will take turns at the wheel of the car: Phillippe Denes (USA), Alberto Di Folco (ITA) and Dennis Lind(DNK).

Denes (USA), 25, defended the colors of Imperiale Racing this year in the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint Championship, finishing fifth overall after winning the 2023 championship in the PRO-AM category. In 2022 he starred in the German GT4 and the DTM. In his career, which began in America with karts, he captured third place in the F1600 Championship Series at just seventeen years old, winning twice at Watkins Glen. After racing in Tatuus USF17-Mazda cars in 2017, the following year he finished on the podium in Barcelona in the International GT Open and won the Silverstone 12 Hours in a Porsche 991-I Cup.

Di Folco (ITA), 28, will return to the Imperiale Racing family two years after his commitment in the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint Championship closed in fourth place overall. The Roman driver, freshly runner-up in the Italian Gran Turismo Endurance Championship 2021, winning one race and obtaining three podiums, and in 2018 he came close to success at the Spa 24 Hours in the Am Cup class with the Mirandola-based team. Third in the Pro class of the 2015 Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo, the previous year he had established himself in the Pro-Am class of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, in the first of a long series of seasons spent behind the wheel of cars from Sant’Agata Bolognese.

Lind (DNK), 31, will race with Imperiale Racing for the first time. The Danish driver, who raced this year’s Spa 24 Hours, finished with two wins, three podiums and three pole positions in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 2023 in the Pro-Am class, while he became British GT3 class champion in 2021. In 2018, he won the Blancpain GT Series Asia in the GT3 class thanks to three wins, six podiums, two pole positions and two fastest race laps, while he finished fourth in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe in the Pro-Am class by finishing third in class in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Final. In 2016 he won the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe and the World Finalin Pro class and in 2013 he won the Danish ThundersportChampionship at the wheel of a Chevrolet Camaro.

Elena Pignatti (Team Owner): “We are overjoyed and very proud to be able to end our season at the Jeddah 6 Hours! This is a great occasion for the whole team, the result of the great work put in during the entire 2024 season. That is why it is a great pleasure to be able to offer the steering wheel of our Lamborghini to Phillippe Denes, who defended our colors in the Italian Gran Turismo Sprint Championship, and to Alberto Di Folco, who returns to our family after the great results achieved together in 2021 and 2022. It is a great pleasure to also welcome Dennis Lind, a driver of great talent who has achieved milestones of absolute value throughout his career with the House of Sant’Agata Bolognese. Now we just have to wait a month to launch ourselves into this great, wonderful adventure!”

Phillippe Denes: “I am very happy to be able to announce that I will be taking part in the final race of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Endurance Cup with Imperiale Racing. This will be the second time for me this year in the series-the level is extremely high and I am looking forward to pushing my skills to the limit again. We will be in the Gold class with Di Folco and Lind, two excellent drivers: we have the opportunity to show what the team is made of, and I can’t wait to get out on the track and give it everything I’ve got!”.

Alberto Di Folco: “I am very happy to be back in the Imperiale Racing family, a team that is really a big family. I thank the team from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity I have been given and I am so happy to be back in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Endurance Cup after a season in Italy and in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, it was one of my goals! We are aiming for a podium in the Gold class, I believe that thanks to the package at our disposal between car, team and us drivers we will be able to give everyone a run for their money!”

Dennis Lind: “I am obviously very excited about running the Jeddah 6 Hours with Imperiale Racing, a very prestigious event. It will be great to race on that track: for me this will represent the first time in a street circuit with a GT3, it will be wonderful!”