The Toyota-Ferrari battle restarts at the 6h of Fuji, the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship which sees the GR010 Hybrid favorites in Japan.
After the victory at the 24h of Le Mans, the 499Ps at Monza suffered the revenge of the Japanese, who now on their home track have another chance to top the lead and perhaps put an end to the dispute.
In the crew of Red #51 there is Antonio Giovinazzi ready to get back behind the wheel of his real car, after weeks spent in the simulator to better prepare a commitment on paper that is anything but simple, as he explained in this exclusive interview with Motorsport.com.
Fuji is somewhat reminiscent of Portimao, how difficult will it be to beat the Toyotas at their home race?
“The GR010s will be strong and the track design is more suitable for them. The weather conditions are uncertain and this could be a variable that could put us back in the game. In the last sector I think we will have some difficulties, but we are improving because we are a team young man with a new car. You learn something with every outing, we analyzed the Monza data a lot and we think we understand what our problem is. It’s about putting everything together and making it work”.
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Photo by: Paul Belletti
Do you think others can join the fight between you and Toyota at the top?
“Peugeot can have its say, especially if it rains. Cadillac and Porsche were strong in Portimao, so there could be many of us playing it. Toyota is ahead today, but at Le Mans we didn’t expect the result we achieved, so never say never. You have to keep putting pressure on them, trying to fight for the title until the end.”
For an endurance race, what kind of work is done in the simulator, even trying a circuit never seen before?
“The work is similar to what is done with F1, i.e. developing and learning the car better and better. The two months that passed after Monza were used to understand the negative points we suffered from this year, we’ll see if it helped” .
As a rider’s preparation, what did the two months involve?
“Personally, I haven’t had many stops because if you also follow F1, you have to be on the track for other activities. Not sitting in the car is certainly different, but I worked on the simulator and we’ve already covered many kilometers with the 499P, so my only problem is I haven’t raced at Fuji since 2016; I’ll need more laps to get to know the track better”.
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