Ferrari’s gentlemans club of Motorsport has kicked off in Australia for the first time with the launch of the Australian Ferrari Challenge.
Ferrari Challenge was spawned in 1993 catering to owners who wanted to race their Ferrari 348 with series quickly forming in Europe, North America, Japan and the UK. More recently the Asian series has had cameo’s in Australia, the biggest showcase being at the Albert Park Grand Prix as a support to Formula 1.
But in 2025 a 5 round series kicked off at Bathurst catering to both the latest 296 Challenge and the 488 Challenge cars, and these are not just any Ferrari 296 upgraded the challenge cars are purpose built evolutions of the road car featuring 700 horsepower from the turbocharged 3.0 V6 and a 7 speed DCT paddle shift gearbox the cars weight 1330kg before driver.
The series falls under the Corsa Clienti program and the official name Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli Australasia saw 16 drivers take to the circuit with top speeds close to 290kmh down conrod straight.
The first two races saw Antoine Gittany whose team MC Corsa and representing Ferrari Sydney take both wins in his 296 Challenge with Rod Wilson and Jim Pollicina taking the podium in the first race, while Jim Pollicina and Enzo Cheng rounded out the second podium for the weekend.
The Challenge cars set a lap record for their class of 2 minutes 9 seconds which is substantially quicker than a GT4 car and close to a GT2 specification car in lap time.
You can catch all the action across the year with the remaining events
| Round 2 | Phillip Island | April 5-6 |
| Round 3 | Sydney Motorsport Park | May 3-4 |
| Round 4 | Sydney Motorsport Park | June 28-29 |
| Round 5 | The Bend, SA | September 6-7 |