The fourth-place finish for the 488 GTE no. 51 of AF Corse was the most that the 2017 World Champion duo could have hoped for due to Balance of Performance. However, a brilliant performance by Alessandro Pier Guidi gave them the race lead in the very tricky conditions of the first four hours of the race. When the track finally dried out, brilliance was not enough. The pair finished fourth, coming close to the podium when, five minutes from the end, Maxime Martin’s Aston Martin had to do a splash and go.
Alessandro Pier Guidi: “The race was like a series of ups and downs. We were fast in the wet while in the dry we had the pace limit due to Balance of Performance that was already evident in qualifying. I think it’s clear that we need ‘Race ability’ and I hope that, like it’s been granted to Porsche, it will be granted to us too. In these conditions, this result is the best we could aspire to even though we tried to make the most of all our potential”.
James Calado: “The car wasn’t fast and didn’t perform like the other cars in the dry while in the wet the car was balanced. With a dry track, the Balance of Performance makes things extremely complicated, and there’s no way we can compete. To sum up: in the rain, we were fast, in the dry we were slow. It was a shame we couldn’t pass the Aston Martin but today’s fourth place was the best we could have hoped for”.