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Currently leading the LMGTE category, local team AF Corse will be entering one additional Ferrari 458 Italia for its home race. There will therefore be three AF Corse entries: the No.54 of Piergiuseppe Perazzini, Marco Cioci and Michael Lyons, and the No.55 which will be driven by Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Italian Mirko Venturi who replaces Michele Rugolo. The final AF Corse Ferrari, No.65, will be in the hands of Peter Mann (USA) and two Italians, Lorenzo Casé and Raffaele Giammaria. Six further cars from the Prancing Horse marque will be on track at Imola. AT Racing will be sticking with the same trio as at Silverstone (Alexander Talkanitsa Senior and Junior and Pierre Kaffer), JMW Motorsport with Daniel McKenzie, George Richardson and Daniel Zampieri, and the two F458 Italias of the Swiss team Kessel Racing, Nos.80 and 81, which will be driven respectively by Michael Broniszewski and Giacomo Piccini in the first and Kolawole Aluko, Thomas Kemenater and Matteo Cressoni. The French SOFREV-ASP team will be entrusting its No.58 Ferrari 458 to the hands of famous French footballer Fabien Barthez and his teammates Anthony Pons and Soheil Ayari. The final Italian car in the category will be the No.72, that of the Russian SMP Racing team which returns to Imola hoping to repeat what it achieved last year ... this is where the team made its debut in the ELMS, in the GTC category, signalling the start of its ascent to greater things. Andrea Bertolini, Viktor Shaitar and Sergey Zlobin will be on board.

In the Porsche camp, IMSA Performance Matmut will be present with its two 911 GT3 RSRs. The No.67 will be driven by Erik Maris, Jean-Marc Merlin and Eric Helary, while the No.76 which finished on the podium at Silverstone will be in the hands of Raymond Narac, Nicolas Armindo and David Hallyday. François Perrodo, Sébastien Crubilé and Emmanuel Collard will drive the No.82 997 GT3 RSR of Crubilé Sport, while the final 911 will be in the hands of Michael Wainwright, Adam Carroll and Ben Barker on behalf of Gulf Racing UK. The British team will at the same time also be entering the only Aston Martin V8 Vantage on the ELMS grid, with the same trio of drivers (Roald Goethe, Stuart Hall and Daniel Brown) as in England.

The GTC class will be the best represented on the Enzo e Dino Ferrari Circuit on 18 May. Indeed, no fewer than 15 cars will take the start for the 4 Hours of Imola. The Prancing Horse marque will be well at home as there will be ten F458 Italia GT3s, of which four will be for AF Corse. The No.62 and 63 will respectively be driven by the Franco-American trio of Yannick Mallegol, Howard Blank and Jean-Marc Bachelier and the Danish duo of Mads Radmussen and Dennis Lind. The No.95 will in turn be in the hands of Belgian Adrian de Leener and Monegasque Cédric Sbirrazzuoli. The additional AF Corse N°94 will be driven by Italo-swiss duo Francesco Castellaci and Thomas Flohr. Two other F458 GT3s are being managed by AF Corse, that of Formula Racing which will be driven by Johnny Laursen, Mikkel Mac and Italian Andrea Piccini to replace Jan Magnussen for this round. The No.96 Team Ukraine - class winner at Silverstone – will again feature the same as at the first race, Andriy Kruglyk and Sergii Chukanov (both from the Ukraine) and Alessandro Pier Guidi (ITA). The 2013 class winner, SMP Racing, will also be entering three of the Italian cars (as opposed to two in England), the newcomer being the No.57 which will be driven by Boris Rotenberg, Mika Salo and Maurizio Mediani while the line-ups of the No.71 and No.73 remain unchanged. Finally, the No.59 458 GT3 will be 100% French thanks to the SOFREV-ASP team and its drivers, Christophe Bourret , Pascal Gibon and Jean-Philippe Belloc .

Team Russia by Barwell finished just off the podium at Silverstone so it will be trying to guide the sole BMW Z4 on the grid to a more satisfying result, in the hands of Leo Machitski, Timur Sardarov and Jonathan Cocker. The Audi R8 LMS ultra of Sébastien Loeb Racing will not take part in the second round of ELMS, but the two Porsches from Prospeed Competition and Pro GT by Almeras will be playing their part in the continuing adventure that is the ELMS with the same drivers they had at Silverstone. Finally newcomers to the ELMS this year, the two McLaren MP4 12C GT3s of French team, ART Grand Prix, will be in the hands of Kevin Korjus, Grégoire Demoustier and Yann Goudy in the No.98 and Ricardo Gonzalez, Karim Ajlani and Alex Brundle in the No.99.

Alongside the 4 Hours of Imola, the circuit will also be hosting two rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup France on this two-day meeting. Be at Imola on Saturday, 17 May for two ELMS 90-minute free practice sessions (10h15 to 11h45 and 15h45 to 17h15) and on Sunday, 18 May for the LMGTE and GTS qualifying at 9h45 followed by the LMP2s at 10h15. The start of the race will be at 14h00.

For a full entry list of 4 Hours of Imola, click HERE and for the programme of the weekend's events, go to HERE.

Press release ELMS