The FIA and ACO’s new ‘Hypercar’ regulations are of interest to Ferrari primarily for the platform’s “strong link” to production cars, according to the Italian manufacturer.
Ferrari, which was one of the initial six manufacturers involved in helping shape the recently announced top-class regulations for the FIA World Endurance Championship, has continued to evaluate a possible entry, although it’s understood a decision has not yet been made internally.
A Ferrari spokesperson downplayed any imminent move to confirm the possible WEC project, which would mark its first top-level prototype program since the 333SP from the 1990s.
“As you can imagine, since the rules were only approved on Dec. 5, we are currently analyzing everything in order to understand if there’s room for a project of this kind,” he told Endurance-Info.
“Obviously we are interested since the new rules keep a strong link between production cars and race cars, something that has always been key for a manufacturer like Ferrari.”
Ferrari is known to be working on a replacement to the LaFerrari hypercar, which could arrive by as early as 2021.
Antonello Colleta, who heads up Ferrari’s GT and customer racing activities, is understood to be involved in the Hypercar dialogue, as a potential program could fall under the manufacturer’s GT racing department due to the prospects of future customer cars.
A similar strategy to the Dallara-built 333SP, which was offered largely to privateer teams, could be taken.
Ferrari, along with Toyota, Aston Martin and McLaren, are understood to be the leading manufacturers currently in talks to enter the yet-to-be-named platform, which will debut in the 2020-21 WEC season, although both McLaren and Ferrari may not be ready until the the 2021-22 season.
Both Ford and Porsche, which were initially involved in technical working group meetings earlier this year, are believed to no longer be in discussions with the FIA and ACO.