Italian GT Mugello Preview: Guy Albag and Lorenzo Ferrari defend 13-point lead in Endurance title decider

Guy Albag and Lorenzo Ferrari arrive at Mugello with a 13-point advantage, but the Italian GT Championship’s Endurance finale offers enough points to change the order well beyond the leading two crews. Three different manufacturers have won the opening three races, while the closest class battle is separated by a single point.

The weekend from 30 October to 1 November concludes the 2026 Campionato Italiano Gran Turismo (CIGT) season with one final three-hour race. With the Sprint title decided at Monza earlier this month, the Endurance championship picks up where Imola left off in September and ends in the rolling Tuscan hills of the Mugello valley. That race changed the leaders in outright GT3, GT3 Am and GT Cup Division 1 Pro-Am, leaving Mugello to settle all but one of the drivers’ titles.

Three races, three different winners

Albag and Ferrari’s position owes much to their performance at Imola. Albag passed pole-sitter David Perel at the start, and the #64 AKM Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3, run by Antonelli Motorsport, remained ahead through repeated interruptions. Leading at the 100-minute scoring point and winning the race delivered the maximum 32 points, bringing the pair to 56.

Their nearest challengers, Edoardo Liberati, Mattia Michelotto and Ignazio Zanon, left Imola without adding to their 43 points. The VSR Lamborghini crew had taken control of the championship at Monza in June, recovering from 15th on the grid to win ahead of DL Racing’s Luca Segù, Eliseo Donno and Giacomo Pollini. William Alatalo, Alfred Nilsson and Filip Ugran completed that podium for BMW Italia Ceccato Racing.

What Albag and Ferrari need

The leaders have an obvious target: 20 points at Mugello would put them beyond VSR’s reach. That would take Albag and Ferrari to 76, one more than their closest rivals can achieve even with a maximum score. Third place at both scoring points would do it, bringing eight points after 100 minutes and 12 at the finish. An outright victory would also be sufficient.

The #64 Mercedes-AMG GT3 does have a 35-second pitstop ‘handicap’. Of that, 30 seconds comes from Albag and Lorenzo overall victory at Imola: the top five finishers in each Endurance race receive extra pitstop time for the next round, ranging from 30 seconds for the winners to six seconds for fifth place. The remaining five seconds are added because the car has two drivers instead of three

The distinction matters because the Endurance championship awards points twice during each race. The leader after 100 minutes receives 12, while victory after three hours is worth 20. Across the four-round season, only the best seven of those eight scores count. Albag and Ferrari already have ‘a zero’ from Monza to discard, so every point earned at Mugello can increase their final total. VSR also has a zero available to drop. A perfect afternoon for Liberati, Michelotto and Zanon would therefore force the Mercedes crew to collect at least 20 points to guarantee the title without a tie-break.

Balzan and Medler remain third on 36 points. Magnussen and Villadsen share fourth on points with Donno, Pollini and Segù, both crews having accumulated 32. The two Spirit of Racing Ferrari line-ups follow on 27, with Oregon Team’s Enzo Geraci and Guido Luchetti on 26. All remain mathematically in contention, although those further back need a major setback for the leaders as well as a strong result of their own.

Imperiale faces two Spirit of Racing challengers

In GT3 Pro-Am, Andrea Cola, Lautaro De La Iglesia and Phillippe Denes lead for Imperiale Racing on 68 points. Their class victory at Monza and podium finishes at Misano and Imola have kept the Lamborghini crew ahead, but Spirit of Racing has two cars close enough to threaten. Rafael Duran and David Perel sit six points behind on 62. Francesco Braschi, Riccardo Ponzio and Andrew Rackstraw have 57 after winning the class and finishing second overall at Imola.

That result gives Spirit of Racing a clear reason to expect more than a supporting role at Mugello. Its two Ferraris completed the outright podium last time out, while Duran and Perel also started that race from pole. The discard could tighten the contest further. Imperiale’s lowest score so far is five points, compared with three for the #50 Ferrari and three for the #51. The published gaps therefore do not translate directly into the margins each crew must recover on Sunday.

Two points separate Kessel and Easy Race

The GT3 Am lead changed hands at Imola when Murat Çuhadaroğlu, David Fumanelli and Marco Pulcini retired after the opening-lap contact at Tosa. Having arrived as championship leaders, the Kessel Racing trio now trails on 47 points. Their team-mates Giacomo Altoè, Giovanni Altoè and Oscar Ryndziewicz took the class victory and moved ahead on 68. Easy Race’s Leonardo Gorini and Massimo Perrina are only two points behind, having followed their Misano victory with third-place finishes at Monza and Imola.

Daniel Mancinelli, who shared the Easy Race Ferrari at Misano and Imola but missed Monza, has 47 points of his own. DL Racing’s Rosario Messina, Piergiacomo Randazzo and Stéphane Tribaudini remain in contention on 42. For the leading two crews, even the intermediate classification could prove decisive. Kessel’s lowest existing score is six points and Easy Race’s is seven, making the final calculation slightly less favourable to Gorini and Perrina if both crews score strongly at Mugello.

GT Cup still has three titles to settle

Pietro Pio Agoglia, Mattia Bucci and Alessandro Cremona took over the Division 1 Pro-Am lead with victory at Imola. Their DL Racing Lamborghini has 78 points, nine more than Rossocorsa’s Vitale and De Marco. Edoardo Barbolini, Federico Al Rifai and Simone Patrinicola remain part of the fight after winning the opening two rounds in Spirit of Racing’s Ferrari 296 Challenge. Their retirement at Imola cost them the lead and leaves them needing to recover ground at both scoring points.

Second place after 100 minutes and at the finish would secure the championship for the DL Racing trio, even if Rossocorsa takes the maximum. In Division 2 Pro-Am, APEX Competition leads the chase following its second victory of the season at Imola. Roberto Benedetti and Danny Santi recovered from a difficult start to the weekend to restore a ten-point advantage over SR&R’s Andrea Bodellini, Giacomo Riva and Lyle Schofield.

Division 2 Am is a little more tight. Tsunami RT’s Gianluca Carboni, Davide Di Benedetto and Giuseppe Nicolosi lead on 82 points, just one ahead of ZRS Motorsport’s Francesco Bolzoni and Carlo Contessi. ZRS won the opening two races before Tsunami’s Imola success changed the championship order. The exception is Division 1 Am. Francesco Galli and Luigi Ferrara secured that Endurance title at Imola with Krypton by DL Racing, leaving them free of championship pressure for the final round.

Last time out: Monza settles the Sprint titles

The most recent CIGT weekend delivered two narrow Sprint championship decisions at Monza on 11 October. Jens Klingmann secured his third Sprint title by finishing tenth in a damaged BMW Italia Ceccato Racing M4 GT3. Georgi Dimitrov and Simone Riccitelli won for VSR to draw level on 84 points, but Klingmann prevailed on countback.

Both had three victories; the BMW driver’s second place at Imola made the difference. He finished just 0.367 seconds ahead of the car that could have denied him the crown. Francesco Braschi and Jef Machiels took the GT3 Pro-Am title, while Stefano Gai and Fabrizio Fontana won the Am championship.

In GT Cup Division 1 Pro-Am, Giacomo and Matteo Pollini survived a succession of late position changes to claim the title with ninth overall. A collision ahead of them and the resulting safety car helped settle the championship on 83 points, three clear of both Best Lap Ferrari crews. Matteo Sartori and Mattia Simonini won the race, while Galli added the Division 1 Am Sprint crown to his already secured Endurance title.