Ferrari has vowed not to abandon its dwindling FIA World Endurance Championship title pursuit after a Fuji 6 Hours described as a “nightmare” that yielded only a single point.
The Prancing Horse matched its poorest points tally since the 499P era began, with its best showing across the trio of machines being tenth for the No. 51 crew of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi in a weekend they would rather forget.
That outcome followed a more competitive No. 50 entry, which had won at Lone Star Le Mans, and it squandered any chance of collecting points due to a lengthy three-minute pit stop caused by a pneumatic leak that rendered the air jacks inoperative, before it stopped on the circuit with a battery problem.
With Toyota taking victory, Ferrari now sits 54 points adrift in the manufacturers’ standings with 88 points still available across the remaining rounds at Barcelona and Monza, while the No. 51 crew finds itself 30 points behind in the drivers’ standings with 52 points up for grabs.
Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari’s head of track operations, indicated that Toyota’s unexpected triumph—leapfrogging the dominant Alpine squad at the final stops thanks to a strategic gamble—suggests that sizable points swings can still occur.
“Technically it’s still open, and we will keep fighting every day until it’s closed and it’s over,” Salvi told reporters after the race.
“Both [remaining] circuits should suit us better, and Monza especially, we are at home. Barcelona, we have less information but it should not be a nightmare like here.”
“Here, honestly, a big hand to Toyota because they did an incredible job. Half an hour before the end of the race you didn’t expect a Toyota to be first.”
“So like they were able to do this, we should be able to do that [in future races]. Toyota was also leading until 11 minutes to the end at Austin, so you never know.”
“Especially going to a new track, not everybody has run here, and it’s the end of October, so you never know what happens with the weather. We never give up.”
Ferrari has never excelled at Fuji, with its best result in Japan a fourth place in 2023, a year when there were fewer Hypercars on the grid than today.
“For sure, these slow corners in the last sector are not suiting the 499P,” said Salvi. “We perform better across different speed ranges and in curves that vary significantly from what we faced here.”
“I think with the No. 50 we tried to extract every last bit of performance, but it was still on par with BMW. Alpine, Toyota and Aston Martin were in a different league, yet we still managed to be competitive with them.”
“There are certain aspects in our car’s DNA that can be refined, but completely changing them would require a full rebuild of the car.”
Asked whether the forthcoming 2027 Evo version of the 499P could be a better fit for Fuji, Salvi replied that over-optimizing for the creases of the Japanese track could harm performance elsewhere.
“These are items on our wish list,” Salvi stated. “But we have plenty of positives that we don’t want to squander.”
“It seems we can handle nearly every WEC circuit and its corners, but that final, twisty sector is quite unique to this venue. So we don’t want to over-prioritize that one area and risk impairing other aspects of the car’s performance.”
Giovinazzi also voiced hope that Barcelona would be more favorable for Ferrari, and he expects to reach Monza in early November still mathematically involved in the title fight.
“This track has been a difficult one for us since 2023,” Giovinazzi said after the race. “We have tried so many things since then, and nothing works.”
“We were missing straight-line speed and the balance was not good as well. It’s not the track for us, and we lost some points to our main competitors, but it’s like this.”
“Barcelona is a new track for everyone, so let’s see what we can do there, and hopefully at least we can take the championship fight to Monza.”
