Sebring WEC Wednesday Notebook

***Ferrari’s head of GT and sports race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo explained why the manufacturer ended up changing the monocoque of its No. 51 Ferrari 499P after an accident during last weekend’s Prologue. “It was more a precaution,” he said. “In order to leave the mechanics to properly repair, it was easier for us to replace”. The spare chassis was already on-site.

***Ferrari AF Corse did three endurance tests to prepare for its Hypercar debut. The first attempted long-distance run occurred at Aragon in November, followed by outings at Portimao in January and early March. Ferrari uses one car for its endurance tests and three cars for its standard “functional” tests.

***When asked if Ferrari will do another endurance test before Le Mans, Cannizzo replied: “At the moment we are looking to the big one, Le Mans. At the moment it’s not planned, but we’ll see.”

***Cannizzo also spoke of Dallara’s role as the chassis supplier of the Ferrari 499P. “They are our partners,” he said. “The car has been designed and developed at Ferrari, but Dallara is the partner for the chassis. They are supporting us and looking at everything, so we thank them for being there with us.”

***Alpine and Signatech are targeting a July rollout for their new LMDh car, which is being developed with ORECA. “If we make the first run with the car in July or the start of August, it would be OK,” team principal Philippe Sinault told Sportscar365. “We are organizing a huge summer to be able to make all the test program and plan with the car.”

***Alpine Elf Team only did two days of pre-season testing at Portimao because of shipping delays from the 8 Hours of Bahrain. Sinault revealed that the team canceled tests due to the late arrival of equipment and the ex-Richard Mille Racing Team Oreca, which was run by the same Signatech team that operates the Alpine program.

***Porsche still has a “good way to go” in terms of pace, according to factory LMDh program director Urs Kuratle, who believes it is “nothing to do with BoP”. Speaking to Sportscar365, Kuratle said: “We are not where we want to be; we want to be on top of the table like everybody. We’re a bit away from that so we have work to do definitely.”

***The fastest Porsche lap time so far — a 1:49.487 from Laurens Vanthoor — sits 1.779 seconds slower than the Free Practice pace set by Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi.

***A total of 13 drivers were sanctioned for not sufficiently reducing their speed at the start of red flag periods in Free Practice 2. To each offender, the stewards handed out a drive-through penalty that is suspended until the end of the season provided they don’t breach the red flag regulations again.

***Free Practice 3 will be streamed live on YouTube at all races outside the 24 Hours of Le Mans this season, with English and French language commentary both available. The live YouTube broadcast was trialed at the 8 Hours of Bahrain last year.

***The WEC has also launched a refreshed version of its official app, developed by new partner Sportall. It works on smartphones, tablets, Chromecast and online via FIAWEC.tv.

***The app’s ‘100% FIA WEC’ access pass costs €39.99 and includes live qualifying and race coverage, live on-board cameras during the race, session replays and live timing. Single-race packages for Le Mans (€12.99) and other races (€6.99) are also available.

***The app will be blocked for users in the U.S. and Canada for Sebring and Le Mans due to exclusivity deals between the WEC and national broadcasters MotorTrend and Discovery Velocity.

***A new official broadcast introduction montage has been created for the 2023 season, featuring some of the manufacturers racing in the Hypercar class.

***Oliver Jarvis reckons the elimination of GTE-Pro has made a negligible difference when it comes to traffic management for LMP2 drivers. “When you caught them in the race, it was like four or six cars glued together,” he said. “I haven’t noticed the difference yet. Maybe in the race we’ll notice it a bit more.”

***Scott Huffaker is making his full-time GT racing debut with Kessel Racing and Car Guy this season. The American sampled an Aston Martin Vantage GTE at last year’s Bahrain rookie test but inked a deal to drive the No. 57 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. Mikkel Jensen, who was Huffaker’s IMSA LMP2 co-driver, previously raced for Kessel and was the connection that helped to bring Huffaker on board.

***Huffaker is set for a 17-race program this year, split between the WEC, European Le Mans Series and IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. “It’s really nice because I’m used to doing five or six races a year,” he told Sportscar365.

***The WEC held a ‘Meat and Greet’ season welcome dinner for team principals and series staff on Tuesday. Just before 8:30 p.m. Jim Glickenhaus notified guests of a SpaceX rocket launch from Cape Canaveral. The spaceflight sent a Dragon capsule containing cargo to the International Space Station.

***ABB FIA Formula E World Championship and Extreme E race director Scot Elkins is the Clerk of the Course this weekend. The American was also the DTM’s race director last season and previously worked for IMSA. Eduardo Freitas continues as the WEC’s long-serving race director.

***The FIA, ACO and IMSA “spent a lot of time” determining this year’s Hypercar testing rules to consider cars that also appear in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and those operated by customer teams, according to ACO competition director Thierry Bouvet.

***Part of the WEC sporting regulations states different genres of testing such as manufacturer testing, manufacturer collective testing and team testing, all of which have slightly different definitions. Bouvet’s FIA technical counterpart Marek Nawarecki said: “It simply depends [on] how many cars you have and how many championships you are doing. If you take a specific case, we can tell you how many days you have. Also, it depends on when you homologated your car.”

***Manufacturers that homologated their cars this year, but didn’t race them last year, have the most days of testing available. Another key aspect of the updated testing rules is that manufacturers are no longer allowed to conduct unlimited testing in their first year of racing. Toyota and Peugeot could do this but Ferrari, for example, cannot.

***Jacques Villeneuve is the fourth Formula 1 world champion to appear in the WEC after Emerson Fittipaldi, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. Button and Alonso also raced in the top category when it was LMP1, while Fittipaldi competed in the GTE-Am class at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo in 2014.

***The impact of the WEC’s ban on tire warmers will “differ dramatically” from circuit to circuit, according to Goodyear’s endurance racing program manager Mike McGregor. “In warmer climates such as Sebring and Bahrain, [LMP2] tires should reach their optimal operating window within two laps,” he said. “However, in colder races, there will be a more considerable difference. Drivers will need to balance overdriving the tires in the first few laps as pressures stabilize.”

***According to Kamui Kobayashi, the Toyota GR010 Hybrid needs one lap “to be safe” on tire temperature at the start of a stint on Michelins. “To get the maximum performance, you probably need more,” he suggested. “It depends on how you warm the tires.”

***WEC track action resumes on Thursday with Free Practice 3 starting at 11:55 a.m. EST. Qualifying is due to start at 6:20 p.m. and will be held as three 15-minute sessions.

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report