Fuoco “Tried Everything” in Late-Race Battle With Marciello

Photo: Mercedes-AMG

Antonio Fuoco said he “tried everything” in the closing stages of the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS to pass Raffaele Marciello but ultimately came up short.

The Ferrari factory driver settled for a runner-up finish in Saturday’s Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli round after a hard-fought battle with his fellow countryman in the full darkness at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The dramatic closing laps saw Marciello in the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo hold and win by just eight-tenths of a second over Fuoco’s No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 that he shared with Daniel Serra and Ulysse De Pauw.

While fighting for the overall win of the race, both drivers came up on the Pro-Am class leaders that were in a battle of their own, which complicated matters in the final five minutes.

“It was close,” Fuoco told Sportscar365. “We tried everything but it was not enough. I’m a bit disappointed but I don’t think we could do more than this. So it’s like this.

“The pit stops were perfect, the strategy was perfect. We had a drive-through but I think we did the maximum.

“More than this, it wasn’t possible today.”

After starting 18th in the 25-car GT3-only field due not setting a time in Q1 on Friday, Serra stormed through the field to run second prior to the first round of pit stops just past the one-hour mark.

The Brazilian driver explained that his opening stint was hampered by a scattered start due to an incident between the two Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro-Am class entries from Wright Motorsports and CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports, which spun prior to the green flag.

“The start was quite complicated because when it was green we were still in the last corner; we were not even side-by-side,” Serra told Sportscar365.

“The car was really good. The [tire] degradation in the beginning was nice. I was just having a lot of fun and enjoying.

“I was not expecting to go from 18th to P2 in the first stint. It was a nice stint.”

Serra indicated that the car was particularly difficult to drive when close to the No. 77 Mercedes on track, which affected both his and Fuoco’s stints in the second half of the race.

“The problem was that when we were really close to them, especially when I did the two stints before Antonio, we’d lose a bit of downforce in the front, so it was quite difficult to stay really close,” he explained.

“We needed traffic a bit to help us. When the temperature was colder it was a bit better for our car. We could see that in the second-to-last stint.

“Antonio struggled a little bit and then the last stint he was a bit faster. But anyway it was not enough to beat them.

“I think everyone did a good job. The team did a good job. Second is what we have this time.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John