Ferrari have announced a proper Grand Am program which will begin this year with their new 458.

It's about time....the privateers who have been recently converting the Ferrari Challenge F430 cars to Grand Am specs have been utter failures.

"DAYTONA BEACH -- Ferrari, a power in Formula 1 and other international racing series, began a major step toward a resurgence in American-based Grand-Am Road Racing.

The Italian manufacturer -- which has four overall Rolex 24 At Daytona wins but none since 1972 -- announced Friday it is building a version of its new Ferrari 458 Italia specifically for the Rolex Series, making it easier for teams to race the car in the series.

These "turnkey" Ferraris will be introduced into the GT class later this season.

"It's pretty exciting because this is a segment of the motorsports world that Ferrari had not addressed previously," said Grand-Am managing director of competition Mark Raffauf. "There's quite a bit of interest in seeing these cars race sooner than later."

Ferrari has competed in 46 of 48 Rolex 24s, but the last of its four overall victories came 39 years ago with Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx. The manufacturer also has a pair of class wins, the last in 1998.

Only one Ferrari competed in last year's Rolex 24, completing just 112 laps and finishing 41st of 44 entries, and three Ferrari F430s are entered in this year's 50-car field.

The difference between these current Ferrari 430s and the new 458s that are expected to debut by April are that the current models are built and modified by individual entities, whereas the new models are specifically designed for the Rolex Series.

The announcement came in conjunction with the European unveiling of the new Ferrari F150, which Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro will compete with in Formula 1 this season.

"When you have a brand like Ferrari come and compete in Grand-Am, it puts a big 'open for business' sign for your European and other manufacturers to come and race in the States," said Eddie Cheever, the 1998 Indy 500 winner and a driving force behind Ferrari's push to join the Grand-Am ranks. "The feeling we got from Ferrari is they understand that NASCAR and Grand-Am have a very large footprint in North America.

"It is called Grand-Am Road Racing and Ferrari understood that and they wanted to make sure that they found a way to participate in that."