Zanardi drives the BMW M6 GT3 for the first time

Alessandro Zanardi has started the preparation phase for his first time to race in the BMW M6 GT3. A testing day at Mugello was held for the BMW brand ambassador and former BMW works driver. The season finale of the Italian GT Championship will also be held on the same track on October 14-16, 2016. Zanardi will be driving a BMW Team Italia car that has been specifically modified by BMW Motorsport.

It will be Zanardi’s first competitive GT race since last year’s 24 Hours of Spa Francorchamps (BE) where he shared the wheel responsibilities with Timo Glock (DE) and Bruno Spengler (CA )in the BMW Z4 GT3.

“That was a first for me in many different ways”, said the Italian driver after testing was completed. “It was my first time in a race car for more than a year, my first time in Mugello for many years and my first time in the BMW M6 GT3. The outcome of this test was excellent. The car worked well and we were able to fully concentrate on the set-up. The breaking mechanism I use worked well and it was relatively easy for me to reach the speed I expected to reach. I’m very happy with the result of the test day. Now we have some work to do with the engineers from BMW Motorsport. We will analyze the data we collected to finalize our preparation for the racing weekend.”

Zanardi formerly had a 4-year hiatus in his driving motorsport career. He had won four times at the 105 FIA World Touring Car Championship races between 2005 and 2009 for BMW Team Italy-Spain.