How Prodrive turned the Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello into a Le Mans class winner

The Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello was a GT1-class grand touring race car that the British firm Prodrive built in ten examples between 2001 and 2005. Its cars carried FIA GT Championship titles in 2003 and 2004 and Le Mans Endurance Series titles in 2004 and 2005, and the biggest single result came in 2003, when a Prodrive-built car took its class at Le Mans.

Where did the Ferrari 550 GTS race car come from?

Stephane Ratel, who organised the new FIA GT Championship, wanted Ferrari to build a works car for it. When Ferrari halted its F50 GT test programme, Ratel rewrote the rules, which allowed private teams to homologate their own race cars. That change opened the way for an independent Ferrari racer.

Ratel then gathered private entrants and asked Italtecnica to build a racer from the Ferrari 550 road car. The first of these, called the Ferrari 550 GT, appeared at the end of the 1999 season. It was quick for its size, yet its production engine was never meant for racing and did not last long in racing use.

Frederic Dor, the third customer slated to receive one, cancelled his order, but he still wanted to race a 550. He therefore approached the British company Prodrive, which had built its name in touring car racing and later in rallying, where it took a world title. Care Racing Development, which Dor had meanwhile taken over, commissioned Prodrive to build two cars.

To avoid the problems of the Italtecnica cars, Prodrive gave the car a reinforced engine, enlarged it a little and mounted it lower and farther back to improve the weight distribution. Extensive carbon fibre bodywork brought the car to 1,100 kg (2,425 lb), and a large rear wing was its most visually striking feature.

A British team took a Ferrari road car, cut its weight with carbon fibre and won a class at Le Mans.

How did the 550 GTS perform in its first races?

The car made its debut in 2001 at the Hungaroring, in the sixth of eleven FIA GT rounds that season. Early technical trouble ended that outing, but the pace was there from the start. Its first win followed at the A1-Ring, and a second came at Jarama.

Prodrive returned the car to the grid for the A1-Ring round, having skipped a 24-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps in between. Rickard Rydell and Peter Kox celebrated the first finish of the new car with a victory. One race later the same pair were back on the winner's podium in third place, and Rydell with Alain Menu went on to win again at Jarama.

In 2002 BMS Scuderia Italia took over the first two Prodrive cars. Andrea Piccini and Jean-Denis Deletraz picked up four victories, at Jarama, Anderstorp, Oschersleben and Estoril. Prodrive had meanwhile left the FIA series and came back to the track only for Le Mans with the 550 GTS.

At Le Mans, Rydell, Menu and Tomas Enge qualified on pole for the GTS class and ran ahead of the favoured works Chevrolet Corvette C5-R and Chrysler Viper GTS-R for much of the race. An oil leak forced the Prodrive car out during the 13th hour. Late in the year Prodrive also entered the American Le Mans Series, where Enge and Peter Kox won the class at Laguna Seca.

Why was 2003 the car's breakthrough season?

In 2003 the 550 GTS took over the FIA GT Championship. BMS Scuderia Italia's Thomas Biagi and Matteo Bobbi won six of the ten rounds and finished top of the drivers' standings. The same year the car produced its best result, a class victory at Le Mans.

Fabrizio Gollin and Luca Cappellari, the team's second pairing, had two wins of their own, and one of them was the class victory at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. There they finished as the top GT1 team, with Enzo Calderari and Lilian Bryner supporting them, behind a Freisinger Porsche that few had expected to win. BMS Scuderia Italia took the team title with ease.

At Le Mans, Tomas Enge, Peter Kox and Jamie Davies finished ten laps clear of both works Corvettes. Ferrari had given Prodrive no works support, which made the result all the more notable. It was the biggest achievement the 550 GTS ever recorded.

Ferrari answered with the 575 GTC, a works race car that won on its debut at the FIA round in Estoril. Its later pace, however, stayed behind the 550 GTS. In effect the works programme was a compliment to Prodrive, whose private effort had shown what the car could do.

Did the 550 GTS keep winning in 2004 and 2005?

Largely, yes. In 2004 BMS Scuderia Italia won five of eleven FIA GT races and took the overall victory at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. Larbre Competition ran a 550 in the new Le Mans Endurance Series, while Care Racing fielded a 550 in the FIA series and finished fifth in the team table.

Christophe Bouchut, Pedro Lamy and Steve Zacchia won all four races of the Le Mans Endurance Series and took both the drivers' and the team classification in their class. Prodrive's final Le Mans entry arrived that year, and the Ferraris could only manage third and fourth in the GTS category behind the works Corvettes. Prodrive then closed its Ferrari programme, because Aston Martin had contracted it to develop the DBR9.

In 2005 Maserati's MC12 GT1 became the new rival. Larbre Competition stayed the only team still fighting for wins with a Ferrari in the FIA series, and Gabriele Gardel and Pedro Lamy won twice. The Maserati teams Vitaphone Racing and JMB Racing beat Larbre in the team table, while Gardel's one-point lead was enough for the drivers' title.

BMS Scuderia Italia led the team classification of the Le Mans Endurance Series at season's end, in a series where the 550 won four of five rounds. Christian Pescatori, Michele Bartyan and Toni Seiler shared the drivers' title on two class wins. At Le Mans the cars were weighed down with extra ballast, and Corvette Racing's new C6.R won a class double in front of them.

Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello key figures

What happened to the 550 GTS after Prodrive left?

From 2006 the teams that had raced the 550 largely switched to newer cars, and the model was largely pushed out of international motorsport. No 550 competed in the FIA series in 2006, but Convers MenX, formed by a merger of MenX and Convers Racing, was the only Ferrari entry in the Le Mans Series and finished runner-up in the class standings. Its 2007 Le Mans run was the most recent 550 GTS race appearance at the Sarthe, so far.

That runner-up place qualified the team for the following year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team had already made its first start in the race in 2006, but like the two other 550s entered by Larbre Competition and Russian Age Racing, it retired.

In 2007 Vasiliev, Pergl and Tomas Kostka drove the Convers MenX car to 14th place overall at Le Mans, ahead of several GT1 vehicles. In the FIA series only occasional rounds had entries from Solution F and Larbre Competition, which were unsuccessful.

In 2008 Escuderia ACA Argentina ran a 550 for a full FIA GT season, the first for the model in two years. Esteban Tuero, Gaston Mazzacane, Jose Maria Lopez and Martin Basso shared the driving, and the best finish was fourth at San Luis. The team placed tenth in the team table with seven points. In 2009 Solution F made a guest start with its 550 at the round at Le Castellet, where Ange Barde and Olivier Panis finished seventh.

What made the 550 GTS matter in racing?

It mattered because a private team, not Ferrari, took a production Ferrari 550 into the top of endurance and championship racing. Prodrive reworked the car, cut its weight and beat works Corvettes in the GTS class. Its clearest record is the 2003 Le Mans class win together with the FIA GT and Le Mans Endurance titles.

The project also showed that a team without works support could beat factory efforts. Ferrari's own race car followed the Prodrive success, and Maserati's MC12 GT1 arrived as a strong rival. The 550 had shown it could hold its own, but it was no longer the only force in the class.