Ferrari – Page 21 – Syndication Server

Ferrari Hypercar measuring up to the hype

While the slew of new Hypercar machinery is all attracting its fair share of attention ahead of the FIA WEC season opener tomorrow, there is understandably an especially significant buzz around the AF Corse Ferrari 499Ps from the fans in the …

Returning to the top of sports car racing after 50 years away, Ferrari brings a full-factory LMH prototype, built from the ground up, to the FIA WEC, with the aim of winning the centenary Le Mans 24 Hours overall and a world championship. The team it has assembled in the garage, on the pit wall and in the cockpit on paper looks capable of delivering historic results. But as we know, races aren’t won or lost on paper, and the pressure is on.

To this point, Ferrari’s twin-turbo V6-powered hybrid 499Ps have gradually improved on outright pace in Florida and appear to be in the ballpark of mounting a challenge to Toyota’s all-conquering GR010 HYBRIDs that are the clear benchmark for all the newcomers to Hypercar this season.

James Calado tells RACER the 499P has really impressed him during testing in the off-season and it’s improving all the time. During the track time at the Sebring Prologue and in practice, the lap times have come down and the car has stayed reliable, too. This combination has allowed the team to maximize the available track time. Only the fallout from Calado’s off at Turn 1 on Sunday has cost the team laps.

For this new venture, Ferrari made the choice to promote from within with experienced WEC GTE talent. Calado, Antonio Fuoco, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Miguel Molina moved straight to Hypercar from GTE Pro last year and form the foundation for the team’s stable.

Calado says the experience he and his teammates have competing in the WEC’s GTE classes with AF Corse is translatable, as the 499P drives more like a GT car than a high-powered, high-downforce LMP1 prototype from years gone by.

“It doesn’t take a long to adapt to the 499P with its hybrid system,” he explained. “It deploys for us at 190kph (118mph), it’s smooth and mainly comes into play in a straight line, and it’s also automatic. In terms of corners, you only feel it kick in at Turn 1 and the exit of 17 here at Sebring. It’s handy because it gives you support at the rear.

“The driving compared to GT is super similar, it’s just more complex. There’s a lot more to think about, lots of changes that need to be made on the wheel every lap. It’s just about getting the right changes and learn how to make those adjustments automatically so you don’t need to keep looking down at the wheel. But we’ve done so many laps we’re all up to speed. It’s not a fighter jet.”

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The team behind the scenes are also familiar faces to Calado and his teammates. The vast majority of the staff working on this program have been cherry-picked from the AF Corse GTE Pro effort, the road car side of Ferrari, and the F1 program, with vital knowledge of working on hybrid-powered race cars. There are very few new hires.

“There’s a lot of people I am familiar with, partly because I’ve been part of Ferrari for nine years,” he said. “There are lots of people from across Ferrari, even from F1, the collaboration is great. We needed a bigger team because the cars are more complex, so it’s not just the GTE Pro staff. It’s a good package of guys and the team are working super hard.”

The Ferrari 499P has been impressively reliable thus far, but race readiness is an unknown quantity. JEP/Motorsport Images

What are the expectations at this early stage though? The car completed more than 12,000 miles in testing before the season and managed 337 laps of Sebring in the Prologue. But it still hasn’t been pushed to its limits in a race.

In an ideal world, Ferarri would find a way to get a car on the podium tomorrow, but it is under no illusions that the competition will be hot and suffering from mechanical woes is a real possibility.

“We are here to learn,” Calado noted. “We don’t have the highest expectations yet. We need to experience what this is all about and try to score points, that’s the ultimate goal. If we can finish the race, that will be an achievement in itself.

“Overall I feel privileged. It was a relief to get this drive, I had high hopes, all of us developed the car, got a lot of laps, but it was down to Ferrari to make the decision on the lineup. It’s an exciting time and an exciting project. This is just the start.”

Leclerc keen to ‘stop the talk’ as he defends Ferrari

Charles Leclerc wants to “stop the talk” around Ferrari and says a number of recent rumors have been false after the team needed to take a power unit penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. New team principal Frederic Vasseur named improving …

Charles Leclerc wants to “stop the talk” around Ferrari and says a number of recent rumors have been false after the team needed to take a power unit penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

New team principal Frederic Vasseur named improving reliability as one of his pre-season priorities due to Ferrari’s struggles last year, but Leclerc needed to take a new energy store (ES) and control electronics (CE) after qualifying in Bahrain, then retired from the race. The DNF led to another CE being needed — exceeding the limit of two per year — and a grid penalty, and Italian media reports claim there is a crisis behind the scenes.

“It’s the beginning of the season… Of course, it’s not the ideal start that I wish I had at the beginning, starting in Bahrain, but what can I do about it?” Leclerc said. “Now we need to focus on what’s ahead, what we can do to be a better team, to be better. And yeah, this weekend, we obviously started on the back foot, but our target is to try and do something special. I like this challenge of starting a little bit more on the back foot and trying to do something special, and come back at the front as quickly as possible.

“It’s only the first race of the season and we’ve still got many races to go. We still need to be fighting like crazy to be back at the top and keep pushing. I still believe in it. Of course, we all still need to believe in it, because it’s only the first race.

“So it hasn’t gone as planned — and when it’s Ferrari that doesn’t go as well as it should, then there are lots of voices and all of these things around the team, but we need to be good at spending our energy right, inside the team, pushing in the same direction, making a difference and come back stronger. I feel that this has been the case in the last few weeks, so I’m really looking forward to being back on-track, stop the talk, and get back to driving.”

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There were reports in Italy that senior management are uncertain about Ferrari’s future direction, including a claim that Leclerc had demanded assurances from Ferrari chairman John Elkann, but the Monegasque says they do no reflect the reality within the team.

“Honestly… I obviously saw these rumors, and then I went to Maranello, so I was at first, I was like, ‘I’m not sure how the team is going to react to it.’ But then we’ve had a meeting with the whole team, with all the Ferrari employees, and I was really surprised. Everybody is fully on it and fully positive still, which is great. We need to all push in the same direction, as I said, this is the most important to me.

“This (Elkann rumor) is absolutely untrue. Again, there have been loads of rumors around the team, which, for once, 90% of them were completely unfounded. So yeah, I don’t know where it is coming from, and to be honest, I don’t want to spend even any energy on trying to find where it’s coming from. We just need to be on it and focused our ourselves.”

Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz similarly came to the team’s defense, claiming the atmosphere internally is positive as Ferrari tries to make further progress.

“It is a lot better than what the news make it sound like,” Sainz said. “If you look back at this last weekend and how many rumors there have been around, it seems like the place is not in a great moment, but I can tell you it is so clear to us what we need to improve, how we need to do it, what are the short-, medium- and long-term targets, that I’m actually very surprised at how some people back at home have been trying to destabilize the team.

“Some call it a crisis but we’ve only done one race — it’s impossible to judge a team’s performance after just one race. And we are the first ones not happy with how this first race went, we are the most worried about it and we are the most affected by it and we’re going to try as much as possible to improve.

“I’m quite calm about it. I see people at the factory are committed, focused and with a very clear target in mind and I include myself in it.”

Toyota edges Ferrari in opening Sebring WEC practice

The first practice session of the FIA World Endurance Championship season saw a surprise at the top of the times. AF Corse’s No. 51 Ferrari 499P looked set to finish with the fastest time, courtesy of James Calado who managed a 1m47.935s. However, it was Ryo Hirakawa who ultimately set the benchmark time for the day when he reeled off a 1m47.649s with two minutes remaining in the session to top the timing screens in the No. 8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID.

This lap, faster than any of the times set at the Prologue test, put him ahead of the two Ferraris that finished up second and third in the times. It may not have ended up with the fastest time, but the performance from AF Corse’s 499Ps represented a significant stride in pace ahead of the car’s global race debut on Friday. The early signs of a memorable season opener are here…

The No. 51 ending up second was also particularly encouraging for the team after its hard work to change the chassis after Calado’s hefty Prologue shunt at Turn 1 on Sunday.

Just off Calado’s best time, Miguel Molina put the No. 50 into the top three with a 1m48.039s at the end of the session. This pushed the sole Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to fourth, after early times from Earl Bamber saw it sit as high as second in the times.

Toyota’s No. 7 GR010 HYBRID ended up fifth, nine-tenths off the sister car, but clear of the two Porsche 963s and the Peugeot 9X8s, which were all over a second off.

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The nine Hypercars from the major factory programs all set times faster than the LMP2 runners, while the Glickenhaus and Vanwall continued to struggle for pace, ending up 16th and 20th overall respectively.

The fastest time in LMP2 came from the No. 63 Prema Racing ORECA, a 1m50.074s by Mirko Bortolotti, improving on a previous hot lap (1m50.148s), which was good enough to set the pace early in the session. WRT’s No. 31 ORECA finished up second, with the No. 9 Prema example third.

The GTE ranks saw the Iron Dames Porsche finish up with the quickest time. Michelle Gatting reeled off a 1m59.028s at the very end of the running to put the striking pink 911 RSR 19 a tenth up on the rebuilt No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari, which spent much of the practice session atop the class times.

Corvette Racing’s C8.R made it three marques in the top three, with a 1m59.101s, an improvement in the pace from the Prologue for the Pratt Miller team in its first competitive WEC session as an Am outfit.

Further down the order the Aston Martin teams were unable to find outright pace, a continuation of the Vantage AMR’s Prologue form. The best of the three was the D’Station Racing Vantage, 11th in class.

UP NEXT: FP2 is set to begin this afternoon at 4:35pm local time.

RESULTS

Leclerc to take grid penalty in Saudi Arabia

Ferrari has confirmed that Charles Leclerc will take a grid penalty of at least 10 places for this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, after his retirement from the Bahrain GP forced the team to install a fresh electronics power unit component. Ferrari had replaced the energy store and control electronics on Leclerc’s car before the season-opening race, and teams are only permitted to use two control electronics components per season without penalty.

“We found the cause of the issue that stopped Charles in Sakhir and will use the third CU on his car, which means that we will take a grid penalty,” related team principal Fred Vasseur, who remained optimistic that the setback will not overly compromise the Monegesque driver’s race.

“The Saudi Arabian track is very different to Bahrain in terms of layout and track surface, and top speed is particularly important,” he noted. “I’m confident that we can have a better weekend here.”

However, there remains the possibility that Leclerc’s grid drop could increase if the team finds it necessary to change out the energy store component on his car.

INSIGHT: WEC Prologue shows new and newer Hypercars ready to launch

The new era for the FIA World Endurance Championship is now underway, and the days of a lean top class seem long gone. In the paddock, it feels like the beginning of a truly historic period of sports car racing. The long-awaited plans for convergence have come together. The WEC paddock at Sebring, with its thriving Hypercar category featuring a variety of manufacturers all bringing very different cars, is a sight to behold.

We are now on the eve of the opening meeting. The two-day Prologue test last weekend gave us a first taste of LMDh and LMH cars running on track together, and the two rule sets running together appears to be a natural fit. It’s far less awkward than the early days of the ALMS/Grand-Am merger which saw Daytona Prototypes and LMP2 cars thrown into the same class.

The major manufacturers for the 2023 season made the most of the available track time. It wasn’t plain sailing for all of them, though, as Peugeot and Ferrari lost out on crucial mileage thanks to a combination of on-track incidents and mechanical dramas.

Toyota, perhaps unsurprisingly, looks like the team to beat at Sebring. Its tried and tested GR010 HYBRIDs ran like clockwork all weekend, and set the fastest times. Durability-wise, they would appear near-bullet proof. The upgrades to the aero appear to have made the car more agile too; visibly the 2023-spec GR010 looks at home on the Sebring bumps.

Leaner and meaner Toyota GR010 looks ready for everything coming its way at Sebring. JEP/Motorsport Images

“As drivers we have all felt comfortable in the car and we’re all up to speed; it feels like we have made a nice step in terms of car balance compared to last year,” Toyota’s Brendon Hartley said after the test.

Overall, completing 2,195 miles of running was extremely encouraging for the Japanese marque, which came into the weekend feeling a little bit on the back foot due to its off-season testing program being perhaps less intense than some of the competition.

Cadillac Racing, like Toyota, heads into race week full of enthusiasm. Its single WEC full-season V-Series.R completed 218 laps and was quick too, topping the third session. Cadillac’s Alex Lynn spoke to RACER after the running and was confident about the team’s chances this season.

The Briton, who is a winner at Sebring with the DPi Cadillac, feels the new car is a significant step up on the DPi V.R. “It’s clear that Dallara was determined to right the wrongs from its previous-generation LMP2 chassis,” he said.

Alex Lynn likes what he saw from the new WEC-spec Cadillac. JEP/Motorsport Images

The WEC arm of the Ganassi LMDh operation still has work to do. One key task is getting set up at a base in Europe and another is pressing ahead with a test program, which RACER understands will include a pre-Le Mans endurance test at Portimao.

Thankfully, due to Michelin supplying the same tire to the GTP and Hypercar teams, the testing previously completed by the IMSA crew at Sebring ahead of the season provided the WEC outfit with plenty of directly relatable setup and tire data to give it a head start.

Porsche had a similar experience to Cadillac during the weekend. The car showed flashes of pace but was unable to match the Toyotas and gathered plenty of data over 433 laps. Reliability will be the key to a strong result on Friday night, and so far so good. Penske will be desperate to avoid a similar experience to the Rolex 24 At Daytona, where mechanical issues cost it a shot at a good result.

The remaining entries in Hypercar have a handful of question marks hanging over them at this stage.

Hypercar newcomers Ferrari and Vanwall are set to push Peugeot. JEP/Motorsport Images

For Ferrari, the pace of its 499P on its return to top-class factory racing after 50 years away, was encouraging and improved as the weekend went on. Where the team fell short is in track time — it lost lots of it on the Sunday to lengthy repairs to the No. 51 after James Calado’s Turn 1 shunt.

This left the mechanics scrambling to repair the front end and inspect the chassis for damage. The No. 51 was still being worked on when I visited the garage yesterday, but AF Corse has told RACER that it is changing over to a spare chassis as a precautionary measure.

It wasn’t a perfect Prologue for the Prancing Horse in its top-class sports car racing return as a factory effort, but from what we did see, there is reason to believe that it can be in contention for a strong result on the car’s race debut.

There was a similar amount of frustration at Peugeot Sport. Like AF Corse, it too lost a good chunk of the track time due to repairs and to mechanical woes.

Both 9X8s had on-track incidents, the No. 93 the worse of the two when Jean-Eric Vergne collided with the Vector Sport ORECA. The car then ended up losing more time with mechanical issues.

At this point the entire Peugeot Sport program is hard to read. You’d expect the team to emerge stronger having learned a lot about its car at the tail end of last season, but green shoots of progress have been hard to spot at this stage.

No. 93 driver Gustavo Menezes explained to RACER that while the team has made positive strides, it has had to take some time to adapt to the Sebring track. Until the Prologue the 9X8 hadn’t run on the bumps.

“We could always wish for more time, but in the end we started in a place that we were not happy with last week, and made big steps in the test,” he said. “Sebring is a track that’s really hard on the car, and it highlighted some of our weaknesses. The 9X8 hasn’t run on a track this aggressive, so it puts us at a small disadvantage.

“We have benefited from small improvements to the car aero wise and we’ve worked on reliability, though. It has been a while since Bahrain but we’ve done a lot of testing and it’s been a constant improvement for the car. Step by step we are getting to where we need to be.”

Then we have two smaller efforts in the class, from Glickenhaus Racing and Vanwall. The time sheets weren’t an easy read. Glickenhaus, which opted not to test its 007 at all during the off-season, is struggling for speed here.

The team has been pushing hard to work to a program and above all get up to speed with the new Michelin tires. Adjustments have also been made to its traction control system, to help the car find pace. But the reality is, the car hasn’t been upgraded, it hasn’t been tested, and the competition in the class has taken a leap forward. Even with Balance of Performance governing the class, it would be a surprise to see Glickenhaus in the mix, especially in the early stages of the season.

It’s a similar situation for Vanwall — it too has a car which is lagging behind the rival major OEMs. The positive is that in the hands of Tom Dillman, it did manage a time quicker than three of the Peugeot drivers. With 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve at the wheel, though, it was a different story. The Canadian was far off the pace — so far off, in fact, that he was seconds off the slowest of the LMP2 drivers. He has a lot of work to do.

When looking at the class as a whole, before we get into the practice and qualifying sessions the Hypercar category looks set to be close between Toyota, Cadillac, Porsche and Ferrari, with the Peugeots, Glickenhaus and Vanwall lagging behind. This could all change though, and testing times, as ever, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

What we shouldn’t expect is a BoP change anytime soon. The formula is set for Sebring, with no changes anticipated between the Prologue and race. Beyond that, an anticipatory BoP has been made for Portimao, Spa and Le Mans.

“This is what was agreed last year — it was a long process last year discussed in several working groups. The BoP will be stable until Le Mans,” Toyota technical director Pascal Vasselon told RACER. “The only thing that may be adjusted is the so called ‘Platform BoP’ between LMDh and LMH, which could be adjusted every second race. So, it could be adjusted before Spa.”

The Platform BoP system means any changes made are to all cars of the same type (LMDh and LMH), rather than specific cars. This, in theory, should eliminate the incentive to sandbag.

Así quedó el Ferrari de Charles Leclerc tras fuerte choque en México

La FIA investigará el incidente que podría terminar en una penalización para Leclerc cuando se encuentra peleando codo a codo con Checo

La jornada de Fórmula 1 en la Ciudad de México no terminó del todo bien para Charles Leclerc y Ferrari pues el piloto estrelló su vehículo contra el muro de contención.

Un fuerte accidente entre las curvas 8 y 9 donde incluso Max Verstappen hizo un trompo sin que lograra impactarse pero el de Ferrari no corrió con la misma suerte y en su intento por tomar la curva perdió el control y se impactó en la parte trasera.

El vehículo quedó severamente dañado de la parte trasera y tuvo que ingresar una grúa al Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez que detuvo la práctica por 20 minutos.

El piloto salió por su propio pie del vehículo pero por radio avisó a su equipo que el coche no se veía bien disculpándose por el trabajo extra que le dará a su staff de mecánicos.

La FIA investigará el incidente que podría terminar en una penalización para Leclerc justo cuando se encuentra peleando codo a codo el segundo puesto del campeonato de pilotos con Checo Pérez.

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Max Verstappen se llevó la pole en Japón y está a un paso del campeonato

El neerlandés además está cerca de igualar el récord de victorias en una temporada pues hasta el momento lleva 11 y está a dos del récord

El piloto neerlandés de Red Bull, Max Verstappen consiguió la pole position para el Gran Premio de Japón de este domingo y está a un paso de conseguir el campeonato de pilotos de la temporada 2022 de la Fórmula 1.

Para Verstappen es la quinta pole de la temporada en donde se ha subido 11 veces al podio, pero lo más importante es que está muy cerca de conseguir su segundo título consecutivo.

El de Red Bull registró el mejor tiempo en la calificación de este sábado y superó a Charles Leclerc de Ferrari por apenas 10 milésimas de segundo dejando al otro Ferrari de Carlos Sainz en la tercera posición y detrás de ellos el otro Red Bull de Checo Pérez.

De ganar el GP de Japón y conseguir el bono extra de la vuelta más rápida, Max Verstappen habría asegurado el título mundial, de no conseguir el triunfo tendría que esperar una combinación que le permitiera coronarse desde esta fecha.

El neerlandés además está cerca de igualar el récord de victorias en una temporada pues hasta el momento lleva 11 y está a dos de las 13 que registraron Michael Schumacher y Sebastian Vettel como los máximos ganadores de Grandes Premios en na misma temporada.

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Max Verstappen repite triunfo y Red Bull alarga su ventaja

Red Bull sumó 35 unidades en Hungría, mientras que Mercedes hizo lo propio al meter a Hamilton y Russell acompañando el podio

Max Verstappen demostró que es uno de los mejores pilotos de los últimos 25 años en la Fórmula 1 y con un carrerón espectacular partiendo desde la P10 se llevó la victoria en el GP de Hungría y repite triunfo tras el conseguido en Francia.

Luego de una clasificación para el olvido para Red Bull, los dos autos lograron remontar posiciones para darle puntos valiosísimos a su escudería en el campeonato de constructores pues también Checo Pérez consiguió unidades al terminar en quinta posición.

Checo Pérez también remontó posiciones al largar en la P11 solo que a la hora de buscar un mejor lugar fue mejor para el mexicano asegurar la posición por los puntos que representan en el campeonato.

Red Bull sumó 35 unidades en Hungría, mientras que Mercedes hizo lo propio al meter a Hamilton y Russell acompañando el podio con 34 puntos entre ambos pilotos.

Ferrari apenas pudo sumar 20 unidades con Sainz en cuarta posición y Leclerc en la sexta por detrás de Checo por lo que Red Bull aventaja a Ferrari por casi 100 puntos en el campeonato de constructores.

Mercedes ahora le pisa los talones a Ferrari gracias a las buenas actuaciones en Hungría y Francia donde repitieron posiciones y ya son seis carreras consecutivas donde al menos un Mercedes se sube al podio poniendo interesante el cierre del campeonato en la lucha por el segundo puesto.

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Así queda la clasificación de la Fórmula 1 tras el GP de Canadá

Max Verstappen sumó su sexto triunfo de la temporada en el Gran Premio de Canadá siendo la primera vez que se sube al podio en el circuito de Montreal.

Lewis Hamilton regresó al podio con Mercedes tras mucho tiempo, lo hizo al concluir en tercer sitio y es apenas su segundo podio de la temporada, algo muy triste para el multicampeón.

Así quedaron las tablas de pilotos y constructores tras concluir el GP de Canadá

Leclerc saldrá último en GP de Canadá por doble sanción

Gran oportunidad para Checo Pérez y Max Verstappen de llevar a Red Bull a lo más alto del podio en Canadá

Una terrible noticia para las aspiraciones de Ferrari en la temporada 2022 de la Fórmula 1, pues su piloto Charles Leclerc fue sancionado y saldrá último en la parrilla del GP de Canadá de este domingo.

Leclerc no comienza de buena manera el GP de Canadá pues hizo modificaciones a su monoplaza no autorizadas por la FIA y como consecuencia tendrá que venir desde el fondo de la parrilla si pretende darle puntos a su escudería.

Ha sido una jornada pasada por la lluvia en el circuito de Montreal que ha retrasado mucho el inicio de la clasificación por lo que Ferrari no sabe en qué lugar partirá Carlos Sainz y si podrán acercarse a los Red Bull que parecen tomar el control de la temporada.

Gran oportunidad para Checo Pérez y Max Verstappen de llevar a Red Bull a lo más alto del podio del primer Gran Premio de la temporada en el continente americano, recordando que apenas la jornada pasada se colocaron en 1 y 2 de la tabla de pilotos y ya Red Bull lidera el campeonato de constructores.

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