Ferrari endured a tough weekend in Sunday's World Endurance Championship race at Fuji, with the 499P again struggling for pace at the Japanese venue.
The Maranello squad was only able to salvage one point late in the race with the #51 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado finishing 10th after spending almost the entire race outside the points.
Only the late Safety Car brought the reigning world champions back into contention for a top-10 finish, with Giovinazzi emerging as Ferrari's fastest driver overall in terms of lap times, although his average was ultimately the slowest among all the Hypercar manufacturers.
Adding to Ferrari's woes, the #51 spent half the race on medium tyres, never matching the pace of its rivals, while time lost during its final pitstop amid the chaos in the pitlane, combined with a 10-second penalty for several contacts during the frantic stages of the race, left the trio with a bitter 10th-place finish and saw its championship hopes slip further away.
“Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The tyre choice at the start perhaps wasn’t ideal, but we could still have made the most of it, had it not been for the many restarts following the Safety Car,” lamented Calado.
"It was very difficult to get the tyres up to temperature. Then we picked up two penalties, which we couldn’t serve in the pits because of the neutralisation, which wiped out the gaps and put us at a disadvantage in that respect. Let’s put this race behind us quickly and look ahead."
Things went even worse for the #50 of Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen. Running Michelin softs, with a left-rear medium fitted at one stage, it had defended well and remained consistently around ninth place until its fourth-hour pitstop, when the car failed to rise on its pneumatic jacks, costing it more than three minutes and dropping it into the back of the field.
Molina then reported warnings of falling air pressure in the pneumatic system, with the race coming to an end in the fifth hour when the Spaniard was forced to park his Ferrari after being unable to restart it.
“It was a really tricky race for us, first with the problem at the pitstop and then with the car coming to a halt on the track. We didn’t achieve the best result we could have: we’re aware of that and we’ll have to work to do better in the last two races,” admitted Nielsen.
In his post-race interview, engineer Giuliano Salvi explained why Ferrari struggled for performance at Fuji for the third consecutive year.
"For sure, it's not our favourite track since the start of our challenge with the 499P," he said. "[The pitstop problem] is really disappointing because this is a quite mature car. We didn't expect, we never had anything like that. There was a pneumatic leakage.
So it's pretty simple. Where [the leak was] is not really clear yet. We need to analyse the car.
"It was quite unexpected. And it's such a shame because I think #50 [was doing well] in a difficult track.
"We came here with this approach of damage limitation. But we were in the right place with the right tyres, providing our maximum performance that we could do here. So it was just a shame and totally unexpected. That one is the biggest disappointment for us. Honestly, something that shouldn't happen."
Asked why the #50 Ferrari stopped on track in the penultimate hour, Salvi added: "At the moment, it looks like a separate problem. But it's a bit suspicious that it's a separate problem.
"We had low battery. These were strange two different things. Maybe there is something that broke and cut something else. It's very likely. There was no way to restart. Unfortunately, already with the pitstop, the race was over."
Ferrari had attempted to split the strategies between its cars, but ultimately the #83 499P run by AF Corse, driven by Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica and Phil Hanson also failed to make an impact, finishing 12th and one lap down.
"These kind of slow corners, like the last corner, never suited for 499P," said Salvi. "We go better in our different speed range, and the curvature is completely different [here], so we still struggle on that.
"But the 50 we tried to exploit the maximum performance. But anyway it was at the level of BMW, not as Toyota which was far away. Alpine and Aston were in another league, but at least we were fighting with them. They were on the podium. So I think that should have been our target.
"There are some things in our car layout and DNA that you can improve. But you cannot completely change unless you change completely the car."
Ferrari's pursuit of the top spots in the world championships has now become considerably more difficult, but the Maranello marque is refusing to give up as it heads to the 6 Hours of Barcelona and Monza seeking an immediate response.
"When the going gets tough, the tough gets going," Salvi quipped. "Until it's closed and it's over, we will fight. Both circuits should better cope with us. Monza, especially, we are at home. with Barcelona, we have less information on that, but it should not be a nightmare, unlike like here. So we will never give up, like we didn't do in Austin.
"And also here, a big end for Toyota. They did an incredible job. Until half an hour before the end of the race, you didn't expect Toyota to be the first one. Like they were able to do this, we should be able to do it."
