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    Ferrari Hypercar

    6 Hours of Spa

    11 May 2024
    COMMENTS AFTER 6 HOURS OF SPA

    2024 RACE REVIEW

    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.
    Track Temp36ºCHour 1
    Air Temp23ºCHour 1
    Track Temp27ºCHour 6
    Air Temp20ºCHour 6
    Position - 3
    Gap from leader - +1:14.020 s
    Position - 4
    Gap from leader - +1:17.710 s
    Position - 8
    Gap from leader - +1:49.162 s
    • Ferrari - AF Corse#50A. FUOCO / M. MOLINA / N. NIELSEN
    • Race Result3
    • Fastest Lap2:02.462
    • Pit Stop5
    • Laps141
    • Total time5:58:45.562
    • Gap from leader+1:14.020 s
    AVERAGE SPEED
    TOP SPEED
    AVERAGE SPEED
    TOP SPEED
    • Ferrari - AF Corse#51A. PIER GUIDI / J. CALADO / A. GIOVINAZZI
    • Race Result4
    • Fastest Lap2:03.002
    • Pit Stop6
    • Laps141
    • Total time5:58:49.252
    • Gap from leader+1:17.710 s
    AVG SPEED
    TOP SPEED
    AVG SPEED
    TOP SPEED
    “
    The team did a great job over the entire weekend at Spa.
    Today in the race ,the drivers pulled back many positions and took the lead with the two official cars, benefiting from the team’s excellent strategy, which allowed them to make the most of the tyres. The third and fourth positions of the 499P numbers 50 and 51, as well as the class podium finish of number 83, are significant results. However, this race, which ideally should have concluded at the sixth hour when we were in even better positions, went on a lot longer.
    Antonello Coletta
    Global Head of Endurance and Corse Clienti
    “
    Today was a positive day for us, despite the result.
    As far as the race performance is concerned, we did nothing wrong, setting a perfect strategy. We took the cars, which started at the back of the grid, all the way to the top of the leaderboard, and we were leading the race securely, so much so that we had the three Ferrari 499Ps in the top four positions. Unfortunately, an accident at that point led to a red flag, but we consider the decision to extend the race beyond six hours questionable. We feel a lot of regret because we believe the outcome should have been different.
    Ferdinando Cannizzo
    Head of Endurance Race Cars
    “
    I think the team showed its full potential at Spa,
    and it will be hard to forget how both our crew and our teammates in the 499P number 51 climbed up from the back. At the sixth hour, we were first and second, and I believe that positioning best represents what we saw on the track today.
    Miguel Molina
    499P #50
    “
    I congratulate my teammates and the entire team.
    In the first stints, Antonio (Giovinazzi, ed) did something exceptional by moving up in the standings and allowing me to take the race lead. At that point, we were first and second with the two Ferraris. The race was over for us at the six-hour mark, and the subsequent one-hour and 44-minute ‘sprint race’ shouldn’t have happened.
    James Calado
    499P #51
    “
    It was a complicated race at Spa, with excellent moments and trickier ones.
    Eighth place overall may not be the best result we could have hoped for, but we are certainly pleased to have achieved third place in the independent teams’ class, which allowed us to climb the world championship podium for the third consecutive time.
    Yifei Ye
    499P #83
    Ferrari Hypercar, 2024, Spa cover art

    COVER ART BY PATRIZIO EVANGELISTI

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      The circuit is near Francorchamps in the Stavelot municipality bordering the town of Spa in the Ardennes region of Belgium.
      The Spa-Francorchamps track was built in the early 1920s. Its layout connected the Ardennes villages of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot. It was the idea of Jules de Thier, owner of the “La Meuse” newspaper, and Henri Langlois Van Ophem, member of the Sports Commission at the RACB (Royal Automobile Club Belgium). The circuit was inaugurated in 1924 with a 24-hour race for regular production cars.

      The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is known to racing insiders as the “University of Formula 1” due to the variety of turns, straights, climbs and descents that the drivers face.

      The main events include the famous 24 Hours, a one-day event that inaugurated the facility. It was reserved for touring cars but since 2001 has been extended to GTs. It has been on the Formula 1 calendar since 1950, hosting the Belgian Grand Prix. The first edition of the Grand Prix, the European one, dates back to 1925. Formula 1 single-seaters have raced at Spa-Francorchamps except for a break in the 1970s. The Grand Prix was then held at Nivelles and Zolder before returning in 1983.

      The circuit’s appeal extends throughout the 7km layout, but the most famous and fascinating section is undoubtedly the Eau Rouge-Raidillon combination. Eau Rouge, so-called because it was built over a small watercourse of the same name, is the left turn before the climb, leading to the Raidillon turn on the right, where the cars reach very high speeds, with a 17% gradient and a 40-metre drop.

      At the end of the 1970’s the circuit management decided to build a new semi-permanent track, and through various interventions, gradually reduced the original 14 km to 7 km. In 1980, a new double chicane called the Bus Stop was added, so-called because it was located near a bus stop between the Blanchimont turn and the La Source hairpin. The new pits were built just before La Source due to the creation of a flat starting line to allow the return of Formula 1 cars under the new regulations. The old pit straight, still in use for the other categories, didn’t meet this requirement.

      Spa is one of the most beautiful circuits in Europe
      One of the few largely unchanged 'old generation' tracks still in use.

      Indeed, the track immersed in the green of the Ardennes still has nearly all the technical characteristics of the original circuit (which was about 14 kilometres long), making it exciting from first to last from the technical point of view. It is full of technical aspects that can bring out differences between drivers. The fans' pulses quicken when the cars pass by the Eau Rouge or Radillon, and nerves fray when a driver goes at full tilt (or not) into this fearsome dip.

      Of course, drivers don't only set their best times courtesy of the Eau Rouge and Radillon. The central part of Spa is very interesting, with its sequence of fast curves interspersed with short straights. This second stage is perhaps the most technical, with the driver needing to take a very particular approach so as not to spin out. After the mixed section, at the exit of the treacherous Stavelot, the drivers go back in time to the evocative straight in the Ardennes forest, the Blanchimont, which leads to the final turn, the Bus Stop.

      However, the Belgian circuit is also famous for its very changeable weather conditions, which often produce wet and dry stretches on a track that is almost seven kilometres long!

      499P is the name of the Le Mans Hypercar with which Ferrari has taken on the top class of the FIA WEC World Endurance Championship since the 2023 season – a name evoking the history of the Maranello manufacturer.

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