Pier Guidi: Ferrari Shouldn’t “Regret” Imola Defeat

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Ferrari should not “regret” its narrow defeat to Toyota in the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Imola as it lost for reasons beyond its control, believes Alessandro Pier Guidi.

The Italian driver made the remarks in the wake of finishing second on home turf aboard the No. 51 Ferrari 499P he shared with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, behind the winning No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi.

Pier Guidi was referencing the second virtual safety car period of the race that allowed the No. 8 crew a chance to change all four tires at low cost, after it had jumped ahead by virtue of triple-stinting its tires.

By contrast, the No. 51 car that Pier Guidi took over from Calado changed two tires under green, before changing the remaining two under caution, after which it was never able to reassert the advantage.

“They decided to go for a triple [stint] and they might have paid a penalty in terms of performance in the following stint, but then with the virtual safety car immediately after our advantage was gone,” Pier Guidi told reporters.

“After that it was impossible to overtake. I spent two stints behind the Toyota, ‘Giovi’ spent another one, and with the acceleration we have on this kind of track, it was impossible to overtake.

“In this kind of race, a small piece of luck can change a lot when the performance is so close. Even if we had more pace it was impossible to overtake because of the layout of the track because every time our acceleration was not strong. I was losing a few metres by the braking zone so it was almost impossible to overtake.”

Asked by Sportscar365 if the defeat on home soil hurt, Pier Guidi responded: “It’s still a second place. It’s not so bad.

“Of course we want to win in front of our home fans, but this is racing. The level of this championship is so high, so it’s normal sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

“There was some luck on their side. But it’s something you can’t control [and shouldn’t] regret. It was not our mistake.

“If you have a crystal ball, it’s easy to make the perfect strategy. But we don’t have it. Without [the virtual safety car] I don’t know, maybe they could not have stayed in front. We’ll never know this.”

Fuoco “Frustrated” at Lack of Late Progress After Penalty

The second works Ferrari, the No. 50 car of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen, could only finish sixth despite starting third and running second behind the No. 51 car early on.

That was after a penalty handed to the car for a yellow flag offense, which dropped Nielsen well down the order as the pack had just been bunched up by the safety car.

While satisfied to salvage points for sixth, Fuoco, who was in the No. 50 car for the closing stages, admitted to frustration at being able to make further progress, as he got stuck behind the No. 35 Alpine of Charles Milesi and the No. 20 BMW of Rene Rast late on.

”In the end I think we did the best we could with the penalty, which came at the worst possible time in the race because after the safety car, we started from last,” said Fuoco.

”At the end we scored good points considering where we were after an hour and a half. This is positive.

“It’s a bit frustrating on the other hand to see the race today because when you have a good car, a good balance and then pull away out of the corner, there’s nothing you can do, it’s not nice as a driver.

“When you exit Turn 19 [Rivazza 2] and they gain 20 meters, it’s impossible, even with the tow.

“It was really frustrating. I was feeling good in the car and I thought I could have finished P4, but it was not the case.”

Source: Sports Car 365