Ferrari subsequently lost its pole position at the WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps. The bad news from the Italians’ perspective became public late on Friday evening around 9:50 p.m. – around six hours after the end of qualifying on the traditional Belgian circuit.
The #50 Ferrari 499P (Fuoco, Molina, Nielsen), which Antonio Fuoco had secured the second pole of the season in a row after Imola, failed the technical inspection after qualifying. The verdict of the sports commissioners: The Ferrari did not have the prescribed minimum weight.
Spa: Ferrari disqualified – Porsche inherits pole position
The violation of the regulations consequently led to disqualification from qualifying and, as a result, the 19th or last starting position for Fuoco and Co. in the Hypercar starting grid on Saturday (race start at 1:00 p.m., live on Sport1 in Free from 5:00 p.m -TV). The pole position for the third race of the season was inherited by the #5 Penske-Porsche 963 (Campbell, Christensen, Makowiecki), which Matt Campbell had pushed into second place, half a second behind.
Ferrari announced in a late press release that starting number #50 was around one kilogram lighter than permitted. According to the sports car manufacturer, the underweight resulted from replacing the rear section as a result of a collision in the third training session on Friday morning.
Spa grid: Only one Ferrari in the top 8
A very bitter setback for the reigning Le Mans winners, who of course had high hopes for the #50 and its first win of the season in the World Endurance Championship. For the two other Ferraris on the grid, qualifying was anything but satisfactory: the #51 sister car (Pier Guidi, Giovinazzi, Calado) narrowly missed the Hyperpole lap by two hundredths of a second in eleventh place (now 10th on the grid). Qualifying driver James Calado radioed: “The car no longer felt like it did in training this morning.”
The best starting position now goes to the 499P with start number #83 (Kubica, Shwartzman, Ye), which is used privately by AF Corse. Former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica finished ninth in Hyperpole qualifying and has now moved up to P8.
More weight problems: United-McLaren loses second place on the grid
It wasn’t just the pole Ferrari that had a late weight problem – in the LMGT3 category it also hit the #95 United Autosports McLaren (Caygill, Pino, Sato), which lost its second place on the grid. After acceptance, the sports stewards not only discovered that the McLaren 720 S GT3 was underweight, but also that the weight distribution was incorrect – thus the 18th and last starting place in the class for the sports car from the British team led by co-owner Zak Brown. United Autosports maintained that there was no intention behind it.
Among the beneficiaries was the #46 BMW M4 GT3 (Al-Harthy, Rossi, Martin) fielded by WRT. The car with which motorsport superstar Valentino Rossi made his first WEC season, automatically moved up from third to second position. Pole position remains with the Iron Dames’ pink #85 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, shared by the fast ladies Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting.