Ferrari Questions “Weird Call” to Repair Damage on No. 50 Car

Ferrari’s race and test team manager Giuliano Salvi was left frustrated by race control’s “weird” call to fix contact damage on the No. 50 car during the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, as it further complicated a challenging race for the Italian manufacturer in Brazil.

The Prancing Horse saw its four-race win streak in the FIA World Endurance Championship come to an end as the 499P struggled for competitiveness, with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA claiming a 1-2 victory at the Interlagos circuit.

The best-placed Ferrari after six hours of racing was the satellite No. 83 car of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson in eighth place, while the two works-entered cars finished the race in 11th and 12th places.

However, Salvi told reporters post-race that the No. 50 car of Nicklas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina would likely have secured a top-ten finish had it not been for contact with the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

The incident occurred in the third hour when Nielsen, who was at the wheel of the Ferrari at the time, came up to lap the Ben Keating-driven Corvette on the Reta Oposta straight.

The contact ripped off the Ferrari’s right-rear skid block, briefly triggering a Full Course Yellow to recover the debris.

Soon thereafter, once green flag racing had been resumed, race control ordered Ferrari to repair the damage on the No. 50 car, which Salvi described as a “weird call.”

“For the No. 50 car, there was a contact with a GT that was really unfortunate,” he said. “I think we can’t blame it on Nicklas was doing a smooth job and it was really unfortunate because then there was this weird call immediately to replace the part.”

The instruction forced the No. 50 Ferrari to make an unscheduled stop to replace the tail section on the car, putting it on the back foot for the remainder of the race.

“This destroyed our race,” said Salvi. “For us, in our opinion, of course everybody has an opinion that was different from the race control, it was a safe situation.

“We saw already other races with, the Toyota was without the sidepod or whatever.

“For us it was safe because we had the first priority in our case to [ensure] the safety of our drivers.

“It was a safe situation because it was a fender that was just pulled away. But race direction decided in a different way and this completely screwed the No. 50’s race.”

Salvi said that had race control not ordered the repair, the team would instead have opted to evaluate the full extent of the damage and a possible tail replacement at the next scheduled stop.

“We know that it’s quite an insensitive part aerodynamically,” said Salvi. “It’s more a fairing that part, it’s more to cover, to protect. But in terms of performance, we didn’t see any gain or loss.

“It was quite insensitive. So at the end of the day, we would have evaluated at the next pit stop.

“If there was anything like a cable unprotected, we would have done the change.

“Otherwise it would have been a common decision with the chief mechanic just to see if there was nothing, because we just saw it on passing through the straight and it was difficult because it was on the other side and from television.

“But if there was nothing unprotected, and there was nothing unprotected, it would have been an evaluation.

“So [either] nothing, or wait for the pitstop.”