Ferrari has admitted they underestimated the rain during the WEC 6 Hours of Imola as they did not opt to split strategies between their two 499Ps.
Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari Endurance Race Cars Race and Testing Manager, spoke to selected media after the race explaining their misunderstanding.
“For sure we should have split the cars and we try to do it but at the end we didn’t do it.
“So we need to revise all the procedures because [of the] mistake.
“… Unfortunately at the time — at the moment — the situation was already compromised.
“The worst thing for me, is that I really [feel] sorry for the Tifosi, for all our people in Imola [and] in the grandstands.
“James [Calado #51 driver] gave his view. Sometimes the driver has a better understanding, sometimes not.
“We expected the rain to come sooner and put our drivers to nurse the [slick] tyres in a better way, just because we wanted to go long expecting something.
“Then acccording to our data, we never realised at the time that we should have been there [on wets].
“And so this, I think, gave us a wrong perception of the reality.”
After the halfway point during the third FIA World Endurance Championship round, the threat of rain became a reality with much of it in the final sector.
Ferrari, nursing quad-stinted medium slicks, stayed on track to retain their 1-2 position which became a 1-3 after Nyck de Vries jumped #50 driver Miguel Molina on a restart.
When the local rain intensified, Toyota quickly decided to pit their #7 and #8 GR010 Hybrids to change to wet tyres, as Ferrari did not.
Eventually, after the #7 Toyota in the hands of Kamui Kobayashi demonstrated pace north of 18 seconds faster than the leading Ferrari, the Maralleno squad pitted both cars for wets which dropped them down the order as the #7 took over the lead.
The two factory Ferraris finished in fourth and seventh as they acknowledged the satisfactory pace of their 499Ps, but misjudged the opportunity to keep at least one Ferrari out to fend the race lead.
