Ferrari on podium at 6 Hours of Spa

The 6 Hours of Spa, round three of the FIA WEC, finished with the Ferrari - AF Corse team’s 499Ps in third and fourth, respectively, piloted by the crews of Fuoco-Molina-Nielsen and Pier Guidi-Calado-Giovinazzi. A red flag interrupted the race with 1 hour and 47 minutes remaining, when the two Ferraris were in the lead, with Alessandro Pier Guidi ahead of Antonio Fuoco, and the AF Corse number 83 in fourth position with Yifei Ye at the wheel. 

After a difficult outing at Imola, the Ferraris delivered a perfect performance in front of almost 90,000 spectators, with an aggressive strategy, impeccable tyre management, and flawless pit stops. This enabled the Maranello cars to move into the top positions after starting from the middle of the pack. They did so with excellent early stints by Giovinazzi and Nielsen, followed by Calado and Molina in mid-race. The Briton led from lap 71, with the Spaniard closely trailing just three seconds behind in third.

Then Pier Guidi and Fuoco began their stints: the forty-year-old driver consolidated the lead, while Fuoco moved into second place on lap 86. With the official team’s Ferraris out in front, a red flag came out following an accident between a Hypercar and a LMGT3, obliging everyone to stop to allow for the restoration of the protective barriers, with 1 hour, 47 minutes and 30 seconds remaining until the chequered flag.

At 6.55 p.m., the restart was announced. However, this included the recovery of the one hour and 44 minutes of suspension rather than just the five minutes remaining until the natural end of the event. At the restart, Ferrari number 51 first had to make an emergency stop, followed by a final pit stop, like its ‘sister’ car number 50. In the finale, despite the Italian drivers’ excellent lap times, they could not overtake Porsches number 12 and 6, which finished first and second, respectively. These Porsches had made their fourth pit stop before the suspension.

Despite the difficulties, the crew of Fuoco-Molina-Nielsen finished in an excellent third position, while the trio of Pier Guidi-Calado-Giovinazzi secured fourth. AF Corse’s 499P number 83, shared by official Ferrari drivers Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman, with Robert Kubica, finished in third place in the independent FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams and were eighth overall.