Ravaglia signs up Gene and De Simone

"I am quite happy to have this strong duo racing for me," said team owner Roberto Ravaglia. "I think they are a very good mix and they both impressed me a lot during the recent testing. Gene was very good in Misano, driving with slick tyres on the wet track and then in Vallelunga, where he covered more than 1000km in three days without any visible sign of fatigue. De Simone is a very fast driver, in my opinion he needs just a bit of discipline to be a title contender."

Gene is the older brother of Williams Formula 1 test driver Marc, and won the 1996 Spanish Super Touring Championship in a works Audi A4 Quattro. De Simone, 31 from Rome, was a race winner for BMW Italy in the Italian Super Touring Championship between 1997 and 1999.

"I really wanted to come back," he said. "I was only waiting for a good opportunity. And this is it, because I raced already for BMW, I have a good feeling with Ravaglia and I know very well the team's technical director Roberto Trevisan, who was my race engineer in F3000. I covered a few laps in Vallelunga but it was enough to discover that I like the car and that I am very determined to restart with a lot of ambition."