Ferrari: “Revenge Spirit” Fueled Macau Preparations

Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo admits the Italian marque’s Macau preparations were fueled by a “revenge spirit” after Antonio Fuoco sealed the brand its first FIA GT World Cup title in dominant style on Sunday.

Fuoco dominated both Saturday’s Qualifying Race and Sunday’s Main Race on the famous Guia Circuit as he repelled a challenge from the BMW of Raffaele Marciello to make Ferrari only the fourth different brand to win the GT World Cup.

The result was in contrast to last year’s race, when Fuoco passed Marciello for the lead only for the pair to controversially make contact under braking for Lisboa, which delayed both of them and allowed Mercedes-AMG’s Maro Engel to win instead.

Cannizzo paid tribute to Fuoco, praising him in particular for the safety car restart in the Main Race as the AF Corse Ferrari driver put enough distance between himself and Marciello to prevent any chance of an attack coming at Lisboa.

“After last year, we arrived here very motivated, preparing for the race, knowing we could have done a good result,” Cannizzo told reporters post-race. “Every detail was addressed by the engineers, mechanics, by both teams, AF Corse and Harmony.

“This gave us the possibility in qualifying to extract the utmost performance from the 296 GT3, which was definitely great and definitely the best car on the ‘driving’ parts of the circuit. We know that we were a little bit weaker in a straight line, but we didn’t give up and we tried to understand how to manage the situation.

“Antonio made an excellent race, especially about the restart. It was so clever. We knew in normal conditions there was no chance for us to stay in front with such a huge gap in straight line performance between BMW and Ferrari.

“We knew this, and we discussed this in our preparation for the race. We knew that a surprise was the only chance for us and he was really good at surprising the competitors.”

Asked by Sportscar365 if the events of 2024 made its first Macau win even sweeter, Cannizzo replied: “I would say yes because if this would have happened last year, probably [it would have been] a different emotion.

“We arrived here with some bitter taste from last year, with some revenge spirit, and this gives us now the possibility to breathe and enjoy this victory.”

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Fuoco echoed Cannizzo’s thoughts and admitted he was worried that Marciello could be in a position to threaten him due to the straight line speed advantage of the BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

“It’s really special to win in Macau, especially after last year,” said Fuoco. “We came back here with one goal and we did a great job through all the free practices, qualifying, Super Pole and the race yesterday [Qualifying Race] and today [Main Race].

“At the restart to be honest I was a bit scared looking at Lello’s start, so I tried to push hard in the last two corners to open up the gap a bit. I almost lost the car at Mandarin, but I was pushing really hard and everything worked well.”

Cannizzo wouldn’t be drawn on whether Ferrari plans to defend its victory in 2026 but expressed hope that a Macau return would be possible.

“This is something we will discuss with Antonello [Coletta, Ferrari global head of endurance] and for sure we will understand what to do in the future,” he said.

“There is nothing I can say now, but it would be really special to be back here.”