18 November 2018
Shanghai – The 6 Hours of Shanghai has traditionally been a particularly difficult race for Ferrari. The GTE-Pro class cars had already been slow in qualifying, when they had been unable to do better than fifth row. In the race, the 488 GTEs of AF Corse recovered as always, even pushing into the podium positions for a few laps, but in the end slipped to fifth and eighth place in a race that saw them struggle with wet tyres. The GTE-Am class wasn’t easy either, with the Ferraris taking the lead at times but in the end finishing outside the top three.
GTE-Pro. The first half of the race was not very interesting. The race started behind the Safety Car because of the rain pelting down over Shanghai and was suspended twice. After three hours, fewer than 20 laps had been completed under the green flag. The two Ferrari cars competing in the GTE-Pro class adopted different strategies: the no. 51 making its first pit stop when the Safety Car was out, replacing Alessandro Pier Guidi with James Calado; the no. 71 continuing before finally entering the pits under the green flag but with Sam Bird staying at the wheel. Two hours from the finish no. 51 was in third and no. 71 sixth. At the restart after yet another Safety Car, Davide Rigon climbed into no. 71 and began to make up ground on his rivals to move into third, while Calado struggled to find a grip with the Wet tyres, the same problem that Rigon then complained about in his last stint. In the final stages, another Safety Car caused the group to bunch and Calado managed to pass Rigon, who in the final lap slipped to eighth in a race won by the Aston Martin of Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim.
GTE-Am. In the GTE-Am class, the first part of the race saw the Ferrari no. 54 of Spirit of Race excel with Francesco Castellacci although all the 488 GTE cars put up a fight with Weng Sun Mok in Clearwater Racing no. 61 and Motoaki Ishikawa in MR Racing no. 70. Thomas Flohr replaced Castellacci at the pit stop, while Eddie Cheever III took over from Ishikawa. However, Matt Griffin was best of all, climbing into no. 61 in place of Mok, in his last race in the WEC. The Irishman even took the lead but after the following pit stop Keita Sawa slipped back again. In the final stages, the deteriorating weather hampered the 488 GTE crews even though Giancarlo Fisichella drove the Spirit of Race car into fourth place with a last stint worthy of his reputation. The 488 GTE of MR Racing finished sixth and the car of Clearwater Racing seventh. Class win went to the Porsche no. 77 of Campbell-Andlauer-Ried, while the Toyota of Conway-Kobayashi-Lopez clinched the overall win. The next race is the Sebring 1000 Miles in March 2019.
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