Ferrari Challenge, Laguna Seca — In Search of the Luce
We went looking for Ferrari’s most hated car. We didn’t find it, but we found a rather good race instead.
Full disclosure: we did not, at any point during the Ferrari Challenge weekend at Laguna Seca, know who was winning. We’re not proud of it. We’re not especially ashamed of it either. We came for the cars, the paddock, and a deeply important investigation into whether we’d spot the most hated Ferrari ever built.
Here’s the thing about this event, it doesn’t demand that you treat it like a points table. Fifty-plus 296 Challenge cars, an open paddock, gentleman/gentlelady drivers, and a generous scattering of the latest and greatest Ferrari road cars parked about the place for owners to lean on and photograph. It is a low-key, surprisingly civilized way to watch Ferraris race each other without the rest of the circus. You can get close. Nobody seems to mind.
The Road Cars:
Which brings us to the homework we did take seriously: hunting the elusive Ferrari Luce (pronounced: LOO-CHAY). The company’s first EV landed this spring to the kind of reception usually reserved for parking fines and emergency dental procedures. One former chairman went on Italian television and essentially said that telling the truth about it would be bad for Ferrari’s health — then floated removing the badge from it altogether. A silent, four-door, half-million-euro Ferrari, in a paddock full of howling race cars and people who came specifically to hear them? It wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. So we looked. Behind the transporters, down the pit lane, among the owners’ road cars. Nothing. It didn’t turn up. Indeed a smart car.
And then, almost by accident, we caught the racing — and it was good.
For the record, since we’ve since done our homework: Saturday’s Trofeo Pirelli race went to teenage points leader Johnny Kaminskey of Ferrari of Long Island, who led from the front to extend his championship lead. To the delight of the locals, Ferrari of San Francisco’s George Grinzewitsch III and Brad Fauvre completed the podium in second and third. In Coppa Shell, Blake Rosser of Ferrari of San Diego took the win from Charlie Menard with a move at the final corner on the last lap. Michael Mathes won Trofeo Pirelli Am, and Tim Duit of Ferrari Dallas took Coppa Shell Am.
Johnny Kaminskey of Ferrari of Long Island
Leading the way!
Sunday rearranged the order. Roberto Perrina of Ferrari of Seattle won Trofeo Pirelli Race 2; Kaminskey settled for second and kept his title lead intact; Grinzewitsch took third for the home crowd once again. Charlie Menard turned Saturday’s near-miss into a Coppa Shell victory, and Tim Duit completed a clean Coppa Shell Am weekend sweep, this time by more than sixteen seconds.
So, What Exactly Is the Ferrari Challenge?
If you wandered into a Ferrari Challenge weekend the way we tend to — for the paddock, the road cars, and the noise — you'd be forgiven for not quite knowing what you were watching. Here's the short version: it's the closest thing motorsport has to a members' club with a pit lane, and it's been running for over thirty years.
The Ferrari Challenge is a one-make racing series — meaning everyone drives the same car, so the racing comes down to the driver rather than whose budget bought the cleverest aero. Ferrari launched it in Europe in 1993, originally so owners of the 348 Challenge had somewhere to actually use the thing. North America followed in 1994. The whole operation is run by Ferrari's Corse Clienti ("customer racing") department, and the North American series is sanctioned by IMSA.
A race weekend is refreshingly simple: free practice, a qualifying session, and then two races — usually around 35 minutes each. No pit stops, no tyre strategy spreadsheets, no team principal scowling on the pit wall. Just a green light and a few dozen Ferraris sorting themselves out.
The current weapon is the 296 Challenge, the latest in a lineage that runs back through the 488, 458, F430, 360, F355 and the original 348. It's derived from the 296 GTB road car but built strictly for the track — you cannot drive one to the shops — and it shares much of its engineering with the 296 GT3 that races in proper GT championships. The headline number is roughly 690 horsepower from a twin-turbo V6, which is a great deal of performance to hand to someone whose day job is orthodontics.
This is the part that makes the series tick. Entries are organized by Ferrari dealerships, so a grid reads like a directory of the franchise: Ferrari of San Francisco, Ferrari of Seattle, Ferrari of Long Island, and so on. The drivers are the dealerships' clients — gentleman racers, in the polite term — ranging from quick semi-professionals to enthusiasts living out a very expensive hobby.
To keep that mix fair, each series is split into four classes based on experience rather than machinery:
Trofeo Pirelli — the sharpest end, for the most experienced and competitive drivers.
Trofeo Pirelli Am — the same speed of ambition, a touch less seat time.
Coppa Shell — the gentleman-driver class proper, leaning toward older racers.
Coppa Shell Am — the same, for those newer to the discipline.
The Challenge now runs as several regional series — Europe, North America, the UK, Japan, and a new Australasia championship that debuted in 2025, with a Middle East series joining for the 2026–27 season. At the end of the year they're all funnelled into the Finali Mondiali, Ferrari's World Final, where the champions of each region race together and Ferrari crowns genuine "world champions." More than a hundred 296 Challenge cars turned up to the most recent one.
If you want to follow along, you don't need a ticket or a tax bracket: every round is live-streamed free on Ferrari's YouTube channel with English commentary, and the series is televised in over ninety countries.
So no, we didn’t watch it like analysts. We watched it like fans, which is the correct way to watch anything. Come for the cars, stay for the racing you may catch by accident. The series heads to Sonoma Raceway, July 22–26, It should be hot…literally…and with any luck, we’ll have our first Luce signting.
Mega gallery below:
