After the opening race at Monza, the FIA-GT Championship is back in Italy for the fourth round of the season at Imola. Last year, Pirelli swept the board at the circuit - a stone's throw from Bologna - by winning with Michael Bartels' Saleen S7-R and bringing home the debutante Maserati MC12s in second and third places. Now, Bartels has moved to Maserati and an MC12, with which he has secured a series of podium places, but has not yet experienced the joy of victory, which could be within his reach at Imola.

After three races, the Pirelli-Maserati duo dominates the 2005 FIA-GT, with six of its drivers on equal points at the top of the drivers' championship, Maserati leading the manufacturers' table and Vitaphone Racing, which fields the Silverstone winners, Babini-Biagi, as well as Bartels-Scheider, leading the team classification. The Italians were beaten to the chequered flag at Silverstone by two Aston Martin DBR9s, which scored no points because they were competing outside the championship. But in 2006, the Astons will be fully-fledged FIA-GT series competitors in BMS-Scuderia Italia colours and on P Zero Racing tyres developed by Pirelli Competizioni.

The race will be no easy matter for the Maserati MC12s. Imola is already a demanding track, especially on brakes, but the situation will be even more difficult because the regulations demand that Vitaphone's Maseratis carry 80 Kg of ballast and the JMB's Wendlinger-Bertolini MC12 70 Kg.
 

Certainly a significant handicap, as their adversaries (the Gardel-Lamy Ferrari 550 Maranello, the Kumpen-Hezemans-Longin Corvette C5R and the Deletraz-Piccini Ferrari 575 GTC, the latter two on P Zero Racing tyres) will compete without any ballast at all.

Pierluigi De Cancellis, Pirelli Competizioni Circuit Manager, explains, "Although not having ballast is a major advantage, the Maseratis are certainly not beaten before they start. The MC12s are cars of great equilibrium, for which reason they will still be highly competitive, even with many extra kilos of mass.

"At Imola, a circuit of slippery but not very abrasive asphalt, the Pirelli crews will also have available to them extremely soft compounds, which will provide more motility in all conditions and increase stability under braking". De Cancellis continued, "The crews competing on P Zero Racing can run two thirds of the event's 500 Km on the same tyres. The Ferrari 575 GTC will have new rear tyres, while the Maseratis will have available to them the new P Zero Racing evolution successfully tested at Silverstone".

As well as the FIA-GT Championship event on 29 May, Imola will also host the third round of the Maserati Trofeo Europa, in which all cars compete on Pirelli P Zero tyres.