Ferrari Says “Big Step” Proves 499P Evo Joker Worked

Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo says the “big step” shown by the 499P in the Bahrain FIA World Endurance Championship finale proves that the Evo joker it applied after the 24 Hours of Le Mans worked as intended.

The Italian manufacturer suffered a disappointing end to its second Hypercar campaign last month, as its No. 51 car was disqualified from second place and the No. 50 crew’s drivers’ title bid ended with an 11th-place finish.

It left Ferrari third in the manufacturers’ standings, 53 points behind eventual winners Toyota and 51 behind second-placed Porsche.

However, Bahrain marked the best showing for the two works Ferraris since the addition of a joker modification ostensibly aimed at improving braking performance was introduced post-Le Mans, in time for July’s Sao Paulo race.

Cannizzo was keen to highlight what had been a dominant run for the No. 51 Ferrari in the eight-hour Bahrain season closer until its advantage was eradicated by two safety cars, with the car excluded post-race for exceeding its tire allocation.

“First of all, I would like to highlight the big step we did compared to last year,” Cannizzo told reporters. “We are generally happy with the level of performance of the car.

“The joker we played after Le Mans, this is one of the race weekends we expected to see a benefit and in fact it was not constraining the setup or strategy choices.

“The strategy and tire management we did, considering that we were able to lead almost the entire race [with car No. 51] was excellent.

“For me, calling a safety car for just a car that you could just pull back is a shame. We were able to build a good gap versus the competition and we didn’t make any mistakes. But the two safety cars completely cancelled the others’ mistakes.

“The car was able to extract a very good pace; maybe not peak performance, but we were never looking at peak performance because we know at this specific track that track tire management determines your ability to keep pace. This is what we did.

“This [race] is proof of how good we were when we could properly manage the tires and keep the pace at a very high level.”

Ferrari ended up scoring two victories over the course of 2024, one with the No. 50 car of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen at Le Mans and another with the third-string No. 83 AF Corse machine at the Circuit of The Americas in September.

Fuoco, Molina and Nielsen ended up second in the drivers’ standings, while the No. 51 crew of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi ended up eighth following their Bahrain disqualification.

Cannizzo admitted to “frustration” that chances to win at Imola and Spa were lost, the former due to an incorrect strategy call in bad weather and the latter due to the timing of the red flag in a race that was controversially extended beyond its original duration.

But he added that Ferrari can be satisfied with having a competitive package for at least five races across the course of the season, while also hinting at his unhappiness with the 499P’s Balance of Performance in the Qatar season opener and at Fuji.

“Even though we are not in a good mood with how the season ended, we did well at the start of the season, we did well with the joker,” said Cannizzo.

“Getting rid of two races, Qatar and Fuji, where we clearly had an uneven situation with the performance, we were very competitive at Imola, Spa, Le Mans, Austin [COTA], Bahrain: five races out of eight, and two of those in my opinion can be put aside.

“We should be happy [even if] the results are not paying off. We are aware we need to work hard to improve our execution, and decisions and so on.

“But we are still a young team; it’s only our second year, so it’s young in every aspect.”