Calado “Lucky” to Avoid Damage in Pit Exit “Brown Moment”

James Calado admitted he was “lucky” not to damage the car in his 6 Hours of Sao Paulo “brown moment” when he hit the barriers exiting the pit lane, nearly costing Ferrari its first Brazilian FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar podium.

Despite the manufacturer’s previous struggles at Interlagos, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi had guided the No. 51 Ferrari 499P into victory contention before Calado took over for the final two stints.

But, upon exiting the pits having climbed aboard for the first time, Calado “messed up” and slewed into the barriers, which resulted in a sponsor logo draping over the front of the Ferrari but only caused minor, superficial damage.

Despite this moment, he emerged in the lead and went on to finish second behind the No. 15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8.

“It was obviously a bit cooler, I had a reference from practice but it wasn’t the right reference,” Calado explained to Sportscar365.

“I was lucky to not damage the car. Obviously we had a bollard (the barrier covering) stuck on the car and I could feel the drag but it didn’t affect us too much.

“It was a tricky one, there was a lot going on in the car, trying to keep the temperatures and all these things.

“To finish just two seconds behind is a great result for the team, so super chuffed.”

Calado’s pit exit mishap also caused concern in the garage with Ferrari endurance race team and track operations manager Giuliano Salvi admitting “I lost a few years of my life on that one.”

“The track got extremely cold and in that situation with no blankets to warm up, it’s extremely tricky,” said Salvi when asked about the incident by Sportscar365.

“We were very close to having a serious accident. At the end of the day we lost a few seconds — in hindsight, without losing those seconds, what could’ve been, god only knows.

“The impact was very mild, very gentle. We checked all the data and nothing was seriously damaged so we just managed it to the next pit stop to check everything and it was all fine.”

Calado admitted he was not expecting Ferrari to perform so strongly at a track where the 499P’s previous best result was fourth.

Salvi explained that the team paid particular attention to trying to improve how the car handled around the twisty middle sector to ensure “we were better balanced in the three sectors.”

“We struggled in the previous two editions and it comes after Le Mans usually where we put a lot of our effort so in the past we probably didn’t focus enough [on Brazil],” he admitted.

“Since it was a bit of a nightmare for two years we tried to analyze everything and came here very well prepared.

“We just analyzed the procedure and settings we were using and immediately from the start of the weekend we found that the drivers were definitely happier than in the past.”

Salvi described a strong result as being “extremely important” after the manufacturer’s run of three consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans victories was ended last month as each factory car had only taken one WEC podium this year prior to the Brazilian round.

“We can now look at the second part of the season with a fighting approach in order to see if we can recover more points to Toyota and BMW and be back on the leading position, which is what we aim for always,” he added.