Two and a half day at Corse Clienti – Part one
When we had the idea to start this website earlier this year, we higlighted some events we wanted to attend. Corse Clienti at Spa Francorchamps was one of these highlights and what a highlight it was.
Let me start of with explaining what Crose Clienti actually is. Ferrari has created two categories within the Corse Clienti program. One of them being the XX program and the other one the F1 program. The XX program features ownership of track versions of their road cars like the 599 XX, where the F1 program does the same with retired F1 cars not older than the 1970’s. It’s not just ownership tough, as owners are offered fully loaded track experiences around the world. Their cars get transported to the racetracks and are accompanied by a full race team (Scuderia). Even Pirelli officially joins in with a fully equipped service truck, offering them the best tires. You should really see Corse Clienti as the worlds most exclusive raceclub.
Preparing
As the September got closer, we chose our place to stay near Spa and ran trough the preparations. The sound of these cars is a major part of the ‘wow’ factor and we decided to upgrade to a The RØDE VideoMic Pro to capture it properly, which had us stressing as it nearly got delivered too late for us to bring it along. We decided to bring our slider and tripods for video footage and all our lenses for the photography so we wouldn’t have to miss a thing.
Bad weather
I agreed to meet Stan and Beau there at around eleven o’ clock on the first of September, little did I know that those basterds would make me wait for nearly two hours. Not that those two hours were hell, far from it when you get to enjoy the two F1 cars the Corse Clienti featured this time. The weather turned on me and rainclouds kept rolling for a good part of that day, but all that water made for interesting shooting. When Stan and Beau finally arrived at Spa Francorchamps, we headed for the paddocks and the internet told us that the weather would soon improve.
The paddock
Walking up to the paddock and pitlane we came across the ‘daily’ transport of the Corse Clienti participants and yes, these guys drive Ferrari’s to the Corse Clienti program. Not just any Ferrari’s though: two 458 Speciale, a black Testarossa, a blue 599 GTO and a unique ‘Aranco Triple Leon’ Laferrari. We spent some time shooting these cars, as good carspotters would. All of a sudden we heard the sound of an engine starting and that made Stan scream: “yes”, as he knew that the XX cars were being prepared to race on the legendary Spa circuit. We made haste as we walked towards the pitlane.
