Ferrari Exploring Possible Mid-Season 499P Updates

Photo: Ferrari

Ferrari could roll out updates to its 499P LMH car mid-season next year according to the manufacturer’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo, who is taking a measured approach to any potential evolutions of the Le Mans-winning prototype.

The Italian manufacturer, which finished second in the FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar class this year, has yet to decide if it will pursue so-called ‘EVO jokers’ for the car’s second season in the globe-trotting series.

A decision is understood to be dependent on off-season testing, which will include a Team Penske-organized group test in Qatar later this month as well as other sessions planned by Ferrari AF Corse.

“Yes there is always plans to upgrade the car,” Cannizzo told Sportscar365.

“We need to understand how to schedule these upgrades, of course, [on] which is the best way because we would like to make things in the proper way.

“Our first focus is just to remove any of the reliability risks or problems that we could face, even though until now we were able to manage the car very well.

“In every race, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, we finished the race and have brought the car to the finish line. This is a strength of the car but we would like to be even more.

“On the performance side, I think this year was very useful to collect this data.

“Now we will digest in a way that we can group all the modifications we would like to do, and we will spread to the next season or next year.”

Cannizzo would not be drawn to what areas of the Dallara-chassised LMH prototype could undergo updates.

“We are still on the phase to understand which are the most important [items] to do first looking at the impact on performance,” he explained.

When asked if the updates could be rolled out after the season-opening Qatar 1812km, similar to the rumored schedule fellow LMH competitor Peugeot is taking, he said “potentially, yes.”

“Really, in a very open way, it’s not yet decided. We’ll see,” Cannizzo added.

“The timing is tight [for Qatar] but at the same time, we have to wait until the end of the season to have a full picture of our car performance and our potential strength and weakness before deciding where to invest time in developing the car.

“I think we are using the same approach as we had during the [initial] development of the car.

“This proved to be very good from a certain perspective, so we would like to use the same approach.

“We are not rushing. We would like to understand. When we are convinced that area deserves a step, we will work on it at higher speed.”

Ferrari’s global head of endurance Antonello Coletta added: “Normally, we have a plan of tests and we organize some tests with the other manufacturers.

“It’s normal that we will have some news on the car, but for us it’s not clear, not decided, if we will spend [on] the improvement [of] our car, or if [we] make a normal management of the actual situation and improve little parts without changing the homologation of the car.”

Colletta said a final decision on whether any joker updates will be pursued should come by January.

“We had a chance to demonstrate in the first part of the season that the car probably is not the best car, but is not a bad car,” he said.

“We started on the first line [of the grid] and battled for the podium in each race.

“After Le Mans, unfortunately the situation has been completely different. I can imagine this is the first season for all, the team and the federation.

“But after the first season, I would like to imagine that the situation will be very consistent, clear and the exact value of the team, car and driver can be in the correct value for all.”

Ferrari AF Corse Poised for Unchanged Driver Lineup

Colletta envisions the same lineup of drivers to return to the AF Corse-run operation next year, which could see the manufacturer add a third car but in a customer capacity.

“My idea, and the idea of our management, is to confirm our lineup,” he said.

“It’s normal in all the teams that exists the agreements that need to be renewed, but our idea is to confirm the drivers because we are very happy with our lineup.

“We have demonstrated that we have six good drivers who developed the car in short [time] and during the race, we didn’t see mistakes. Probably just one in Spa.

“But in any case, I saw that in the other teams, the mistakes of the drivers were more consistent than in the Ferrari lineup. For this matter, I am very happy about our drivers.

“If we confirm our drivers, it will be with the same lineup.”

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John