WEC | Ferrari: 296 smiles, 499Ps aim to… survive

At Ferrari, smiles came for once from the LMGT3 class at the end of the very tense qualifying sessions to define the starting grid of the 6 Hours of Fuji.

It was known, in fact, that in this penultimate event of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship season, the 499Ps would not have an easy life among the HYPERCARS, and this proved to be true, at least in the assault on the Hyperpole.

This one was instead fully achieved by an excellent François Heriau with the 296 #55 that he will share in the race with Alessio Rovera and Simon Mann, standing out both in the first elimination heat and in the decisive one for the assignment of the first place on the grid.

The Frenchman did not make any mistakes in his attempts and it is right to start the story of the day of the men from Maranello with him, with hugs and pats on the back that were wasted in the AF Corse pits, on the side of the 296s.

“The car performed really well right from the start of the weekend and I felt comfortable. We were competitive right from free practice, in qualifying I tried to bring home the result and the first Hyperpole arrived,” commented Heriau, at his first pole position start with the 296 this year.

“We have been competitive since the beginning of the year, but sometimes we haven’t been very lucky. This is not a victory, but I consider it an excellent result and I thank the whole team for this. I am also very happy on a personal level because I am a rookie this year with this car and, race after race, my performances as well as my confidence with the 296 are improving”.

“Tomorrow the 6 Hours will be challenging, but we are confident because we have shown that we can be competitive and Simon and Alessio are also very fast. Now the goal is first of all to have a race without errors since we are still looking for the first podium”.

Rovera added: “It’s definitely special, François and the team did a great job, and the car is fantastic. But tomorrow we have the main objective to achieve, so let’s focus on that.”

#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen

Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images

Coming to the so-called ‘big’, only one 499P managed to get past the Q1 trap: Antonio Fuoco’s #50 took part in the Hyperpole session which saw all 10 participants very close together and even though the Calabrian’s time was just over 2 tenths behind the top, the official Rossa did not go beyond 7th place on the grid.

“It was a complicated day as we saw in qualifying and then in the Hyperpole. Here at Fuji several opponents are proving to be very competitive and since the beginning of the week we were aware that this race would not be easy for us at all”, admitted Fuoco, who will now have to try to take as many points as possible together with Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina to continue hoping for the title.

“As always, we tried to do our best and in the race we will try to fight, also because fortunately our direct rivals for the title are immediately ahead of us; if there are the possibilities, we want to try to fight with them right away, but the reality is that we will have to try to survive and finish in the Top5. I know that realistically it is not a position within our reach, but we will try”.

“The starting position is not optimal, but we can look at the positives: the team is doing a great job and we have improved compared to the first two free practice sessions. Also, if I think back to 2023, when we debuted here in Japan with the 499P, we have made some steps forward. The 6 Hours will be difficult, but as always we will do our best to get the best result.”

#91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3: Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring, Richard Lietz, #51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi

Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images

Things went worse for Antonio Giovinazzi, who after the Austin Hyperpole found himself 12th in Q1 and eliminated from the duels for the lead.

“Today we did our best, but qualifying was really difficult for us and we didn’t manage to get into the Hyperpole. We can’t be satisfied, we simply didn’t have the pace like in Austin, where it was certainly better, and the car was very difficult to drive”, complains the Apulian of the #51, now called to a tiring comeback together with Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado.

“We are not starting from a good position, for some reason we had already suffered last year on this track and today we are also in difficulty; evidently it is not the circuit for us. There are several cars in front, such as BMW, Alpine, obviously Toyota and Porsche. It will be a question of survival, trying to get to the finish line. The race is long and we will see what we can do, now we will concentrate on it; it will be a difficult test for our 499P”.

Behind the official Rossa we will see the #83 AF Corse car with which Robert Kubica struggled a lot to put together a good lap, as the standard-bearer of the Piacenza team himself revealed.

“I’m a bit disappointed and honestly I don’t know what happened because as soon as I left the pits I realised I had much less grip than in Free Practice and we need to quickly understand how to solve the problem,” admitted the Pole as he stepped out of the yellow car he shares with Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman.

“When you feel that the grip is missing it’s a nuisance, I tried to give my best and I even encountered some traffic at a certain point. Maybe without the chaos of other cars I could have made it to the next heat, but unfortunately that’s how it went.”

“We tried some quick changes to find more grip, but by that point the tyres were already worn out.”

Additional information by Rachit Thukral