Alfa Romeo 4C to serve as official safety car at World Superbike Championship

The 2014 Alfa Romeo 4C will serve as the official safety car at the 2013 World Superbike Championship, which will be taking place at Silverstone this weekend. The last time Alfa Romeo fans got a glimpse of the 4C was just a couple weeks ago at the Goodwood Festival of Speed , but at Silverstone the car will be wearing a stylish white matte livery with red, white, and green colors from the Italian flag on its roof and hood.

Alfa Romeo is no stranger to the world of bike racing, having sponsored a number of events in the past. “Alfa Romeo is a proud sponsor of the FIM World Superbike Championship having been associated with the series for seven years now,” said Damien Dally, head of the Alfa Romeo brand in the U.K. “As we prepare to launch the Alfa 4C here in the U.K., it's fantastic to be able to showcase this car to the public for a second time as it takes to the prestigious Silverstone circuit.”

The 4C is a mid-engined two-seat rear-wheel-drive sports coupe featuring a turbocharged direct-injected 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine producing 240 hp. The 4C uses quite a bit of lightweight materials to keep the weight down, so we expect those 240 horses and 258 lb-ft of torque to be even more impressive in real life than on paper.

The release of the first Alfa Romeos in America, not counting the 8C Competizione, has been held up for a few years as the Fiat-Chrysler alliance worked through some production and marketing issues. But the 4C is on schedule to arrive in U.S. showrooms in the next few months, with just 1,200 examples of the initial Launch Edition cars earmarked for the U.S. market. No official word on pricing for the 4C for the U.S. market, but we expect it to be close to $78,000 based on published European-market pricing, which puts it squarely into Porsche territory.

By Jay Ramey