WEC | Ferrari-AF Corse again on the podium: “Another important lesson”

AF Corse’s third consecutive podium in the FIA ​​World Cup for Hypercar Teams class of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship has arrived on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

The Italian team, which from this year will field the Ferrari 499P #83 under its own banner, followed up on what it showed in the first two stages of the season, which saw it celebrate respectively a second and a first place with Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman.

After three encouraging free practice sessions, the yellow 499P of AF Corse was entrusted to Kubica to take part in the official tests. The Polish driver closed the qualifying round reserved for Hypercars in fourth position with a time of 2’02”876, ensuring access to the Hyperpole, which took place a few minutes later.

In the decisive session for the assignment of the first five rows of the grid, Kubica obtained the ninth absolute time reference in 2’04”048, thus taking third place in the private category and the fifth row of the grid.

“Obviously I was hoping to get a better result than the ninth position achieved in the Hyperpole, but unfortunately we were missing some important kilometers to prepare for these official tests,” admits Kubica.

“In the first part of qualifying we managed to express ourselves well with the fourth fastest time, while in Hyperpole we lacked a bit of knowledge of the soft tire and unfortunately my lap wasn’t as good.”

Team Principal, Gabriele Marazzi, added: “On Friday we experienced a day with two faces. On the one hand we are very satisfied to have achieved access to the Hyperpole again, thanks to the excellent fourth time achieved by Robert in qualifying. On the other hand, we certainly hoped to gain a better starting position than ninth on the grid.”

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, Yifei Ye

Photo by: Emanuele Clivati ​​| AG Photo

On the iconic circuit located in the Ardennes, the trio of #83 were the protagonists of a good comeback, climbing from eighth to fifth place during the first hour of the race.

The crew then fought for a long time in the Top5 until they found themselves in fourth position overall with 1h47′ left in the race, when the red flag was displayed, freezing hostilities for almost two hours.

A few minutes before the regular race time expired, the clock was reset and the race resumed with 1h44′ remaining. Having restarted from fourth place, the 499P had to stop immediately for an emergency pit stop as it was now running out of fuel.

Also due to a 5″ penalty for a variant cut, the Prancing Horse car slipped to eighth place overall and third in the private Hypercar rankings, maintaining the position until the checkered flag.

However, the class podium allowed the home crew AF Corse to maintain second position in the points classification reserved for independent teams, whose top spot is now 11 points away.

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, Yifei Ye

Photo by: Marco Losi / KAPPAEMEDIA

“It wasn’t an easy weekend for us, starting with some problems encountered during preparation for the race. Thanks to a good start we managed to climb from ninth to fourth place”, comments Kubica.

“Unfortunately, some small errors cost us a lot of time and the red flag came at the worst moment for our car, as we were low on fuel and had to return to the pits immediately after the restart.”

“This relegated us to eighth place overall, third in class. However, it was another precious experience, with another important lesson, which allows us to be better prepared for the most important race of the season, which will be the 24h of Le Mans next month.”

Shwartzman adds: “We finished the race not as we wanted, the team was a bit unlucky with the red flag and we are disappointed about that. In the first stint the car was balanced and I had a good pace that would have allowed us to fight for the overall podium, but the suspension shuffled the cards. Now we look ahead, focusing on the next world championship event at Le Mans.”

Ye also agrees: “It was a complex test in Spa in which we had positive moments and other more complicated ones. Eighth place overall is not the best result we could have aspired to, but we are undoubtedly very happy to have obtained a third place in the class for independent teams, which allowed us to get on the world podium for the third time in a row.”

The Technical Director, Giuseppe Petrotta, comments: “Spa-Francorchamps was a somewhat complicated race for the 499P #83. In the Hyperpole we weren’t able to maximize the performance of our car, but starting from eighth position we managed to grab the Top5 in just a few laps.”

“The events of the race then led us to get up to fourth place when the red flag came out for the bad accident that occurred on the Kemmel straight. A 5″ penalty that we had to serve in the following stop, made us missing the best opportunities to fight for the overall podium, finishing in eighth place after the race restarted”.

“However, despite an initial crash, the car has always performed well, allowing us to conquer another podium, which gives us hope in view of the 24h of Le Mans.”