We wanted to split the strategies, but we didn’t. Ferrari (doesn’t) explain failure in Imola – F1sport.cz

The first three places in qualifying and the best pace in the race. Ferrari had the second event of this season’s WEC at home in Imola to win. However, an incomprehensible decision after a change in the weather, when heavy rain began to fall on the traditional Italian track, relegated the red cars to the losers.

All three Ferrari 499P hypercars had a good chance to win in Imola and thus get the first triumph of the WEC season. However, these chances were taken away approximately two hours before the end of the six-hour race, when it started to rain on the Italian track.

Toyota was the first to react to the change in weather on Sunday, when on lap 135 the strategists of the Japanese factory team called both GR010 Hybrid hypercars into the pits to change to wet tires. Porsche set up a pit stop for prototype #6 at the same time, while leaving sister car #5 on track, splitting the strategies between the two factory crews.

In the next round, Porsche #5 also headed to the pits in the worsening weather. Of the cars fighting at the front until then, only all three Ferraris remained on the track, which lost eight to twelve seconds per lap compared to the cars on the tires with the sample. The Italian hypercars did not enter the pits until the 139th lap. Thanks to this hesitation, the #7 Toyota gained more than a minute on Ferrari, and in the end, they enjoyed an unexpected victory for the Japanese team. On the other hand, the best Ferrari at the finish line was the fourth car #50 of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen.

According to Ferrari racing and testing manager Giuliano Salvi, a combination of a faulty weather forecast and a failure in team communication was behind the poor decision.

“The information we had was clearly wrong. We thought the weather would only get worse temporarily. The drivers felt that only the last sector was critical and that the conditions on the rest of the track were manageable,” Salvi told sportscar365.com after the race.

“However, the situation did not develop in our favor. And in this direction, we need to examine the chain of our communication, because quite obviously there was an error here. We based our decisions on certain scenarios that were wrong. But our strategy is not to point the finger at anyone. We are still the same group of people who won Le Mans last year as rookies. Back then we did everything right and were for heroes, now it’s the exact opposite.”

“We absolutely should have split our car strategies, and we tried to, but in the end we didn’t. It is not clear why. We have to go through everything in detail once more, because we made a mistake.”

“The riders felt good and felt that it would be possible to continue on dry tyres. A critical point was understanding the weather forecast. Our radar was telling us the situation was going to get worse long before it actually did. So we stopped trusting the radar at some point. That’s what happened,” Salvi added.

Ferrari will have a chance to make amends on May 11, when the FIA ​​WEC World Endurance Championship season will continue with a six-hour race in Spa, Belgium.