Schumi to appear at the Nurburgring - 1st September 22:03pm GMT

Michael Schumacher will be the guest of honour at the “Ferrari Racing Days 2004” event which takes place at the Nurburgring circuit (Germany) this weekend. The Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver will take to the track on Sunday 5th September, to do some demonstration laps at the wheel of an F2003-GA.

The event gets underway on Friday 3rd September and the feature race is the fifth round of the Ferrari Challenge Pirelli Trophy Europe. In the one make series for the 360 Modena Challenge car, the current leader of the overall classification is France's Ange Barde (Ferrari West Europe Organisation.) The reigning champion has a 45 point lead over Ireland's Paddy Shovlin (Rossocorsa) who is second. Englishman, Oliver Morley (Ferrari West Europe Organisation) finds himself at the top of the leader board in the Shell Cup for gentlemen drivers.

The three days at the Nurburgring will include an exhibition by twelve Ferrari F1 Clienti cars. Worthy of note, the 1971 ex-Ickx 312 B2 in the hands of Germany’s Michael Willms and the ex-Regazzoni 1975 312 T, driven by Austrian, Leopold Hrobsky, as well as four examples driven by Schumacher between 1996 and 2001.

On the same weekend, Ferrari customer teams will be competing at the Imola circuit (Italy) in the eighth round of the 2004 FIA GT championship. Eleven of the thirty two cars entered represent the Maranello marque. The main class will, as usual, see both the 550 Maranello of the BMS Scuderia Italia and Care Racing teams, and the G.P.C. Giesse Squadra Corse and JMB teams’ 575 GTC. In the N-GT category, there are entries for a Yellow Racing 360 GT and the G.P.C. Giesse Squadra Corse and Mik Corse 360 GTC.

Friday is the day for free practice, with the two timed qualifying sessions running on Saturday, in preparation for Sunday’s race which starts at 11.15.