It made the declare regardless of its two 499P Le Mans Hypercars trailing house in fourth and fifth positions, a lap down on the Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs that blocked out the top two positions.
“There’s a establishment; this place is extra of much less the identical from after the Le Mans 24 Hours,” stated Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari’s race and take a look at staff supervisor.
“Our place in contrast with Toyota is kind of as anticipated.”
Salvi pressured that the shut second place for the #50 Ferrari shared by Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina at Monza in July provided an unrealistic image of the relative efficiency of the 499P in contrast with the Toyota after the post Le Mans Balance of Performance change.
Requested if the hole had grown since Monza, Salvi replied: “No, ultimately that wasn’t the case.”
He prompt that ending a lap down “was our expectation” in a clear race with out vital yellow-flag durations.
There have been three full security vehicles in the course of the Monza 6 Hours, however just one quick-fire security automotive and one Full Course Yellow in Japan final weekend.
That defined why the #50 automotive completed solely 16s behind the successful Toyota on Ferrari’s house floor at Monza.
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Picture by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The one shock for Ferrari at Fuji, Salvi insisted, was the tempo of the Porsche 963 LMDh that completed third within the fingers of Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer.
“What was sudden was how fast Porsche was,” Salvi stated after the race. “It was fairly shocking; we have been the third staff right here.”
Salvi admitted that the Ferrari Hypercar staff run by AF Corse took a cautious strategy on tyre technique at Fuji, although he pressured that he believed it had made the precise decisions.
The 2 499Ps began on the laborious compound Michelin slick and just for the ultimate stint on the #50 automotive did it transfer full over to the medium.
Porsche ran all through the race on mediums, whereas Toyota began with laborious tyres on the left-hand aspect of the automotive and mediums on the precise.
It swapped the #8 to mediums on the left on the first pitstop, after which each vehicles ran mediums all spherical to the end.
“We now have by no means been right here earlier than, we didn’t know the monitor, so our strategy to the tyres was on the conservative aspect,” he defined.
“We began like that as a result of we didn’t have a whole lot of good apply periods [because they were interrupted by rain] to expertise double stints.”