Ferrari returns home with its title hopes reduced to a glimmer at the end of a very difficult 6 Hours of Fuji, the penultimate event of the FIA World Endurance Championship which was expected to be complicated for the 499Ps.
Even though improvements were seen on the Japanese track compared to last year, this time too the drivers had to do their utmost (and beyond) to keep the Maranello cars at least in the top five of the HYPERCAR class.
An early mistake by Robert Kubica at the wheel of the #83 AF Corse essentially put the #51 out of contention, with Giovinazzi/Calado/Pier Guidi gritting their teeth with a damaged car, leaving the #50 of Molina/Nielsen/Fuoco to battle for the top spots.
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen,#5 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, Frederic Makowiecki
Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images
“We have suffered since the beginning of the weekend and it is a shame to start the race with two out of three cars having an accident; unfortunately these things happen. The #83 locked its tyres and in the collision the #51 suffered a lot of damage, especially on the floor on the right side, so we limited ourselves to replacing the front and rear bodywork so as not to waste too much time in the pits, also because it was a considerable amount of damage”, explained the Head of Endurance cars, Ferdinando Cannizzo, also commenting on the subsequent retirement of the #51.
“The performance obviously dropped for the #51, but I have to say that the drivers and the team did a great job in managing this complicated situation, I’m very proud of them. Then there was an electronic issue with the ERS power control, so we decided to recall the car. We need to understand what caused it, but we don’t know yet if it’s related to the accident, we need to investigate.”
“At one point the team lost control of the MGU, and although it would have been safe to continue the race, performance had already been impacted, so the decision was made not to continue.”
However, everything was focused on the #50, which at one point even led for a few laps thanks to an excellent strategy and the commitment of the Le Mans-winning trio, before slipping back again when the Safety Car brought the group back together at the end, allowing other cars, such as Alpine, Porsche-Jota and even Peugeot, to overtake the 499P.
“Even in similar conditions to the others, at the start of the race, it was impossible for us to maintain the pace and that’s what happened at the end, when everyone was on the same strategy. The last Safety Car brought the group back together and so we weren’t able to defend ourselves.”
“The fact is that with the combination of the power we had available together with the aerodynamic load, we couldn’t do more than that and they were overtaking us on the straight, as we saw in the last laps.”
“The positive thing is that the strategy we adopted was excellent, with the #50 we even took the lead for several laps despite the pace we could have maintained and I consider it a very good result. We were unlucky with the last Virtual Safety Car and subsequent SC. Otherwise fourth place would probably have been within our reach”.
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images
The numbers speak for themselves: the best Ferrari in terms of average lap times was the #83 with Robert Shwartzman at +0″7 from the winning #6 Toyota. In the final, Fuoco also highlighted via radio that he was pushing hard and beyond, but that he wouldn’t be able to do much more.
The Calabrian lapped a tenth from Shwartzman and was 0.7 seconds behind the Alpine on the fastest lap of the race. Seeing the Reds overtaken by the Peugeots and falling to ninth hurt the Ferrari drivers terribly and brought back a scenario that in the past had been synonymous with disparity in conditions and performance.
“When you have no performance there is not much else to do, except try a good strategy. As long as the race was smooth and without interruptions, it was working very well. Without pace, the only thing you could do was work on the length of the stints and put new tyres when the others were on used ones.”
“That gave us a bit more pace, but not that much, and you could see that because we were struggling to pass those who were on old tyres. That highlights the difficulty we were in today. We still managed to gain a few positions until the situation turned around.”
“We tried to defend ourselves on the corners, but without acceleration and top speed it was impossible to resist other cars, so we suffered. Despite this, compared to last year the car went very well, showing Top3 performances in sectors 1 and 3, but losing in 2, as well as a bit on the straight”.
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen, #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor, #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries
Photo by: Andreas Beil
With the KO of the #7 Toyota, Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen regained second place in the drivers’ standings with 115 points, but the success of Estre/Vanthoor/Lotterer made them run away with 150.
Porsche, on the other hand, has 161 points among the Constructors, against Toyota’s 151 and Ferrari’s 134, which now sees the two World Championships moving inexorably further apart with only the 8 Hours of Bahrain to contend with, which with 39 points up for grabs mathematically keeps the Prancing Horse in the running.
“Mathematically we are still in the game, but it must be admitted that it is very tough. We must hope to get all three cars into the top three, while the others will have to retire. Unfortunately this is the situation, both among the drivers and the constructors. Toyota lost the lead in the latter, while we ended up too far back, this race has killed most of the title chances.”
“We will certainly try to work a miracle and we will not give up as long as we are in the game, even if the chances are slim. We must be perfect and make sure the car expresses itself at its best, putting the three 499Ps on the podium so that we still have hope.”
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen
Photo by: Andreas Beil
On the drivers’ front, Nielsen’s comment was bitter: “My first stint was quite good, in the second we knew it would be difficult to continue with that pace, but it turned out to be more complicated than expected. The same thing happened to Antonio at the end, today we really struggled a lot, gaining a few positions at the beginning and then losing them at the end”.
Calado was of the same opinion: “Unfortunately, the contact on the first lap compromised our race. We managed to restart, but the car was damaged and we were no longer competitive until the moment of retirement. Mathematically, our teammates can still win the title, even if it won’t be easy, we will try to help them as much as possible”.
Head of Ferrari Endurance and Corse Clienti, Antonello Coletta, added: “Unfortunately we are not used to commenting on a result of this type, knowing the potential of the car and after having witnessed a race in which strategy, pit operations, tyre management and the work of the drivers on the track was impeccable. We did everything in our power to fight for the podium and not having succeeded leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.”
“We regret having seen two cars involved in the accident on the second lap which heavily affected the race of the #51 and #83 Ferraris in their quest to get back into contention for the top positions.”
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