All routes lead to Italy

Chris Froggatt

For Chris Froggatt, the XX Programme provided an entrée into motor sport. Eight years on from taking his first steps out on circuit with Ferrari, he’s the winner of four class titles in GT World Challenge Europe and has twice captained the Team UK squad at the FIA Motorsport Games.

Froggatt, 31, went from taking part in one of Ferrari’s  track driving Corso Pilota events, to buying a 599XX, to racing in the Ferrari Challenge one-make series and on  to international sports car racing in double-quick time – with a slight diversion onto the F1 Clienti programme.

Invited to take part in the Corso Pilota by  a friend, the renewable energy entrepreneur was told he had an aptitude for driving by instructor Andrea Belicchi, an 11-time participant at the Le Mans 24 Hours. When he joined the XX Programme, former Ferrari F1 driver Marc Gené was, says Froggatt, “very complimentary about my driving” on his first outing. Next time out Eddie Cheever III, son of the former grand prix driver and Indy 500 winner of the same name, asked him if he’d thought about having a go at the Challenge.

His race debut in Ferrari’s one-make series came in 2017. The following year he ended up third in the pro-am class, combining his racing with pedalling an F1 car at Clienti events. Froggatt bought a V8-powered 2011 150° Italia, chassis no289, raced by Felipe Massa in period.

The car was sold after three years because Froggatt struggled to squeeze his frame into the cockpit. “My shoulders and knees were hitting the tub,” he explains.

Froggatt still takes part in the Ferrari events in an FXX-K alongside his racing exploits. It allows him time in some exotic machinery in a more relaxed environment than racing his 296 GT3 in the GT World Challenge Europe.

“I have a completely different mindset to when I go racing,” he explains. “When I come to these weekends I just enjoy myself. I can bring friends, give them passenger rides and share my deepest passion with them.”

Jimmy Lin

Jimmy Lin is a successful pop singer, actor and reality TV star in his native Taiwan and in mainland China, but, he insists, he’s a racing driver at heart – and he is a team owner. “When I was a kid my dream was to be a racing driver,” he says. “Roller-skates, bikes, it was all about speed for me.” He competed on both circuits and rally stages before family commitments got in the way. These days he scratches that speed-freak itch by driving his Ferrari F2001 in F1 Clienti events.

Lin’s music career began at the age 17 and he  bought his first Ferrari – a 348 – when he was 23.  He raced the car before going on to compete in single-seaters, touring cars and various sports car categories, as well as rallying – he has a World Rally Championship start to his name. Then the children came along.

“When I had my first kid I stopped rallying because rallying can be very dangerous and when I had twins  I stopped racing,” he says. “I might not race any more, but I was always dreaming of racing and cars. I wanted an F1 car and waited a long time to get this one.”

Lin’s Ferrari is a V10-engined F2001 car, chassis  212, that saw service in the hands of Rubens Barrichello. The machine was lightly used in period making a single start in the hands of the Brazilian at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2001. Lin joined F1 Clienti in 2019 and only finds the time to take his beloved F1 car out two or three times  a year. He lists Mugello as his favourite circuit and plans to keep on driving his Ferrari for the foreseeable future.

Or perhaps another Ferrari.  “One day I hope to have a Michael Schumacher car,” says Lin. His regard for a driver  he once got to interview for GQ magazine is such that he has an official F2001 show car at home in Taiwan. In his F1-themed lounge!