WEC | Only one Ferrari 296 scored points at Spa, bad luck for the other

It ended with sixth place for the #54 crew led by Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and the official Maranello driver, Davide Rigon, and thirteenth place for the #55 car of Simon Mann, François Heriau and the official Alessio Rovera. third stage of the 2024 season of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship, staged on the famous Spa-Francorchamps track.

The qualifying session saw the Ferrari 296 LMGT3 numbers 54 and 55 of Vista AF Corse finish in seventh and fourteenth place respectively. The first qualifying round, which guarantees access to the Hyperpole for the ten best cars, was characterized by a red flag at the beginning of the session due to an accident that occurred at Eau Rouge.

After about 25 minutes, with the asphalt temperature still at 30°C and the atmosphere stable at 20°C, the activities on the track resumed and Flohr managed to gain access to the Hyperpole, during which the The Swiss stopped the clock with a time of 2’21″583 which earned him seventh place on the starting grid.

“The feeling with the 296 LMGT3 is good, we used free practice to fine-tune the set-up of the car and in qualifying we managed to access the Hyperpole without problems – declared Flohr – We started from seventh position, we knew that the the race would have been long and with the conditions to be able to do well.”

Car number 55 was instead brought onto the track by Heriau, who set a time of 2’23″091 which saw him start from fourteenth place.

“I was disappointed not to have managed to grab the Hyperpole which would have allowed us to fight for the top ten positions on the grid. When we mounted the set of new tires in Free Practice 3, the session was declared Full Course Yellow and this did not allow me to gain maximum confidence given that the window of use for this compound is not so wide”, said the French.

The 6 Hours of Spa was strongly characterized by the red flag shown during the fourth hour following the accident between a Hypercar and an LMGT3, when the two Vista AF Corse crews had completed 88 laps and 1 hour remained until the checkered flag 47′ and 30”.

Mann, aboard car number 55, was ready to return to the pits to refuel and hand over the wheel to Rovera while he occupied third position, but the interruption of the race did not allow him to stop.

The #55 team then had to make an emergency pit stop on the restart, only to return again after three laps and complete the refueling operations, thus slipping to the back of the group.

“At the end of the race there was a bit of regret as the red flag didn’t help us, we were third and if the race hadn’t restarted we would have achieved the podium – admits the native of Varese – The additional pit stop ruined our strategy and we were forced to start from the bottom. Now we focus on the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”

Mann adds: “Unfortunately we were a bit unlucky with the red flag coming out just as I was about to rejoin and was in third place. This forced us to make an additional emergency stop which did not allow us to achieve what we hoped for.”

The race was regulated by car number 54 which saw Flohr and Castellacci alternating driving in the first 4 hours, before Rigon took the wheel of the 296 LMGT3 to lead it to a final sixth place.

At the checkered flag, with the temperature of the atmosphere stable at around 22°C and that of the asphalt between 29°C and 37°C, 130 laps were completed (car #54), in a race which, thanks to the suspension and the long break, it did not spare the riders and brought the desired results.

“This 6 Hours of Spa was a very particular race, characterized by the long suspension of the red flag. There was a lot of tire degradation, but the general sensations are good”, explains Rigon.

“We also worked well on the strategy, even if the first virtual safety car didn’t help us much with the pit stop and the driver change. Now we focus on the big race that will take place in Le Mans, the 24 Hours always has an incredible charm ”.