Leonardo Colavita and Double T Racing announced plans to exit the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series and move to compete in the Italian GT Championship’s GT Cup class for next year.
Leonardo Colavita will be heading to a new destination in 2023. This was confirmed after the Italian announced that he will be heading to the Italian GT Championship (CIGT) next year.
Colavita will be competing in the series’ GT Cup division, driving a Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo for Double T Racing – now rebranding itself as TT Racing. Double T will receive technical support from Ferrari’s factory sports car team AF Corse.
“I’m happy to be able to compete in the Campionato Italiano GT Cup with a car like the 488 Challenge Evo,” said Colavita in the official announcement. “I have full faith in TT Racing; the technical support from AF Corse will also allow me to work in close proximity with them.”
The announcement suggests that Colavita, who had been competing in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series for the past two years and became the series’ youngest driver since Giles Thornton when he made his debut at Rijeka in 2021, will be leaving the series for next year.
The suggestion was further reinforced by what Double T’s owner Onofrio Veneziani had said in the announcement. Veneziani said “I want to thank Leonardo for the faith in our team. We’ll be by his side throughout his first season in GT cars, after a great experience in EuroNASCAR. A big thanks to AF Corse for the technical support they will provide in 2023.”
Colavita completed his first full-season in EuroNASCAR earlier this year, initially competing for Racers Motorsport in the JTG Daugherty-partnered No. 47 Camaro before the No. 47 team split off from Racers when Veneziani reformed Double T midway through the season.
It was a tough year for Colavita in the top EuroNASCAR PRO division, finishing 22nd in the overall standings after suffering from five finishes outside of the top-20. He did score one top-10 finish at Zolder, but it was a rather fortunate one as he took advantage from a late-race crash that involved most of the front-running drivers to score his lone top-10 finish of the year.
Things went better in EuroNASCAR 2 for the young Italian, as he scored one top-5 finish and two other top-10 finishes in 2022. Despite this, a double DNS at Most and a retirement in the final race of the season ultimately relegated him to 13th place in the overall standings, finishing just 25 points off the top-10 positions.
Disclaimer: Unless noted on the photo, all photos used in this article are courtesy of Leonardo Colavita on Instagram.