Nielsen: Spa Should Suit Ferrari Better Than Imola

Nicklas Nielsen believes the characteristics of the Spa track should suit the Ferrari 499P better than the FIA World Endurance Championship opener at Imola and enable it to take the fight to Toyota.

It was the Japanese manufacturer that stole the early WEC advantage at the delayed first round of the season as, despite Antonio Giovinazzi achieving pole in the No. 51 Ferrari, the crew lost out in the race to the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid.

But Nielsen is encouraged by the fact Ferrari scored a 1-2 result at Spa last year and is targeting another strong performance this time around.

“We’ve seen all the years we’ve been coming here with the car it’s a good track for us,” he said when asked by Sportscar365 about Ferrari’s chances at Spa.

“Our car is good in the high-speed corners and we struggle a bit more in low-speed and rotation parts so that’s why I say this is quite a strong track for us.

“I’m not saying it’s not a strong track for Toyota, because I think they’re going to be there as well.

“We also saw last year that Alpine and BMW were really fast, so I think it’s going to be very tight.”

However, Alessandro Pier Guidi was more cautious when asked about Ferrari’s chances this weekend, saying: “I don’t think we will have the same level of performance as last year, but let’s see.”

Pier Guidi added that Ferrari “always try to improve and learn” from every race but said it would be difficult to take too many lessons from the Imola opener.

“Apart from knowledge of the tires [the new-for-2026 Michelin Pilot Sport Endurance rubber] there’s not much more,” he said.

“Between Imola and here they’re such different tracks that it’s quite difficult to apply something you worked on at Imola to apply here.”

While Pier Guidi’s No. 51 machine did finish runner-up at Imola, Nielsen was only sixth in the No. 50 Ferrari after the crew picked up a costly drive-through penalty in the opening half of the race for a yellow-flag infringement that left them needing to fight through the field.

“What is most important for us this time is to have a clean race,” Nielsen added. “It was a shame in Imola because Ale [Pier Guidi] said it was a bit like racing in Monaco.

“Even with that, we were still able to come back from basically last to P6, which I think was a good result and decent points. It was not what we would’ve liked and we could’ve taken more points from it.”

He said that missed opportunity “doesn’t change the mindset” even with he, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina being already on the back foot in the title race.

“I think we saw good performance from the car,” he added of the recovery drive. “As racing drivers we always come to win so that would be the mindset.”