Ferrari 499P
Car No. 51 499P led for most of the race
The Ferrari 499P #51 was aiming for its first win of the season and ran well in the race, finishing second and on the podium, but after the race it was found to have violated tire regulations, dropping it to 14th place.
Heading into the final WEC race, the Bahrain 8 Hours, Ferrari still had a chance of winning both championships, but the best result for the Ferrari AF Corse 499P was 11th place, driven by car number 50 (Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Niklas Nielsen).Car number 51, which had been fighting for the win from the start, finished in second place, but after the race it was given a 4 minute 55 second penalty for violating the prescribed number of tires, dropping it to 14th place.
After leading the race for over six hours, the #51 499P finished second behind the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid (Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa). However, after the finish, the stewards pointed out that the #51 car had used 28 tyres in total for qualifying and the race, instead of the permitted 26.
The team was within the 26-tire limit, but due to a mistake, the tires installed for the grid formation in the final race were used in the race as well. These two tires were not considered to be the team’s allocated tires for the race week, and a time penalty of 2 minutes 55 seconds was imposed on the team’s final results.
Calado, who was driving the No. 51 car, had a disappointing end to the season, and he reflected on the season as follows:
“I’m very sorry that I couldn’t win the title for Ferrari. It was a difficult goal going into this race, but I was determined to give it my all until the end. I think I was able to show some top-class speed in the Bahrain 8 Hours. My second season in the WEC has come to an end, and I feel like it’s been a positive year.”
Car No. 50 falls out of the running for the prize after two accidents
Car 499P No. 50 suffered an accident immediately after the start, but managed to regain position towards the middle of the race. However, another accident caused a flat tire and dropped the car out of the running for the prize.
It was an unlucky race for the three drivers in the No. 50 499P. Molina, who was in charge of the first stint, made contact with a rival at the start, damaging the front aerodynamic parts of his car. This forced him to slow down significantly and required a nose replacement during his first pit stop.
Nielsen and Fuoco followed, and he moved up to fifth place, but with one hour to go he had another accident, puncturing his left rear tire, making an unscheduled pit stop for a tire change and finishing the race in 11th place.
“It was not a race I was happy with. Miguel (Molina) had an accident right at the start which put us way back in the standings. Midway through the race we were running at a good pace and had climbed into the top five, but then a second accident dropped us back down the ranks. Without that bad luck I think we would have been in a position to challenge for the podium,” said Nielsen with a sigh after the race.
As a result, Ferrari finished third in the Manufacturers’ Championship behind Toyota and Porsche, while in the Drivers’ Championship the #50 car was unable to beat the #6 Porsche 963 (Kevin Estre, André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor) and finished the season in second place.
AF Corse’s #83 499P (Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, Ye Yifei) finished in eighth place, third in the FIA World Cup for privateer teams, behind the two Hertz Team Jota (Porsche) cars.
