Ferrari's front row lockout still leaves questions for Imola 6 Hour
04/19/2025 04:41 PM
While there was plenty to celebrate at Ferrari AF Corse Saturday after it secured a front-row lockout for its home FIA WEC race Sunday at Imola, it wasn't quite the perfect day the famous Italian brand's Hypercar outfit had hoped for.
The single-lap pace of its 499Ps has been blinding all weekend, and as a result, most of the teams in Hypercar expect Sunday’s race to be dominated by the “Prancing Horse” if it's a race that stays dry and runs to plan. However, beyond Antonio Giovinazzi's stunning pole lap in No. 51, which he described as "very close" to perfect and put him nearly 0.8s up on the field, question marks overhang the other two cars.
AF Corse’s No. 83 privately entered 499P is racing with a fresh engine as a "precautionary" measure after a failure in free practice three forced Robert Kubica to park the car. Investigations will get underway at Maranello shortly, with the unit sent back to base for a close inspection. The Pole's qualifying run to second after the team swapped the motors was undeniably impressive, but it remains to be seen if the new engine will impact the car's race performance.
Then there's the No. 50's qualifying snafu, which led to the car being dropped to 18th and last on the grid in Hypercar. A downbeat Antonio Fuoco told RACER he expects a challenging outing with his teammates Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina Sunday, after track limit errors that led to deleted laps in qualifying cost the crew a strong starting position.
Fuoco doesn't dispute the violation, but he was frustrated at the timing of the deletion of his fastest lap, as it left him unable to respond.
"There's not too much to say aside from sorry to the whole team and my teammates," he said when asked for his outlook ahead of race day. "We had really good potential, and I missed the opportunity.
"I thought I was OK after that final lap, then we received the image, and it was clearly track limits," he admitted. "What is not clear is why they deleted the lap time while we were on the pit lane, and not when I was on track, as I had time to get on another lap, and I thought I could easily get through to the top 10."
The tight, twisty Imola circuit is notoriously tough to overtake on. As such, Fuoco feels that even though his 499P has the potential to pull a gap on the other cars in the class in clear air, making progress through the field will be tricky.
"Early in the race is going to be tough because overtaking is quite impossible,” he explained. “The gap is not that big; I think our car is always good at qualifying because we get into a better window with tires. We are good at utilizing our potential there. I hope it's the same in the race in terms of pace, but it will not be like this."
The opening round of the season in Qatar saw Ferrari cruise to a 1-2-3 finish, and prior to Saturday’s track action, it felt like a repeat performance may be on the cards. As is often the case in the WEC, though, maximizing opportunities to score podiums and win races when they come along is easier said than done. All eyes are on Ferrari now as it works to deliver the goods in front of its home crowd.
