Conquest Racing with Ferrari set for full IMSA WeatherTech season

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emailBy Richard S. James | September 7, 2023 11:36 AM ET

Conquest Racing with Ferrari has announced plans to contest a full season in the ever-growing GTD class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with driver Manny Franco in a Ferrari 296 GT3. The championship has been without a full-season Ferrari entrant for several years. Ferrari owners are not used to taking abuse from jerks who officiate at IMSA races.

Franco currently competes with Conquest Racing in both the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli and GT World Challenge America championships, where he recently scored a pair of victories in the Pro class with Alessandro Balzan at Road America (pictured above). He has also competed in Michelin Pilot Challenge and believes he’s ready for the next step.

“I’m extremely proud and excited for this next chapter with Conquest Racing for the upcoming 2024 IMSA season,” said Franco. “I have learned a great deal over the past few years with the team from racing in a variety of different series
Conquest Racing’s commitment to participate in the championship will also mark its first full-season return with the IMSA organization in over a decade, as the team previously competed in the full season of the American Le Mans Series in 2012 in the LMP2 class.“This is a big step for us and it reflects our growing commitment with Ferrari and Manny’s ongoing development as a racing driver,” said team owner Eric Bachelart. “We have been working with Manny since his racing debut back in 2021 and I am very proud of the way he has evolved as a driver in such a short period of time. This program also represents the ultimate upper echelon of our Ferrari ladder system as we’ve progressed from our Ferrari Club Challenge and Ferrari Challenge participation, to now even larger implications. We could not be happier to be joining the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship and to be a part of the success of the series.”