Once upon a time, Enzo-Ferrari He said that the most beautiful racing car is the one that wins the best, or something like that. It’s a clever quote, and we can all understand Ferrari’s point, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. The Scuderia couldn’t buy a win during the 1992 Formula 1 season, for example, and yet that fact doesn’t diminish my appreciation for the F92A silhouette.
Win or lose, I hope I can say the same for Ferrari’s next Le Mans hypercar. We’ll get our first full look without a camo wrap on October 30 before its competitive debut at Sebring in the spring.
Maranello’s as-yet-unnamed prototype is a big deal for both Ferrari and sports car racing. It’s the manufacturer’s first effort in the category since the 333 SP more than two decades ago. And he enters the field at a time when everyone, from porschea BMWa Lamborghinia Cadillac Y Acura– is also preparing to campaign with its own resistance machines.
Ferrari says it has already logged more than 6,200 miles in testing since July, which is the kind of work you have to do if you want to give your race car the best chance of getting through a grueling 12 or 24 hours on the limit. Antonello Coletta, who heads the brand’s sports car racing efforts, said Motorsport.es that their engineers never really had a set mileage goal in mind; they’re just looking to run the thing as much as physically possible before their competition record starts. And probably after that, too:
“Every 10 days or so we’re on the track and we’ll do it as long as we can before we go to Sebring. It is essential to ride every day because you really discover a lot of new things, so you have to make the changes and then go back to the track to check them.
“The car is very complicated because we have chosen the Hypercar [LMH rules], while the LMDh regulations require a slightly simpler car. This choice brings with it some non-trivial complications to resolve. That’s why I say the more we drive, the better.”
In fact, while almost everyone else who will contend for overall victory at Le Mans in years to come (except Toyota and Peugeot, of course) chose the easier LMDh route, which uses spec chassis and hybrid powertrains, Ferrari had to do things. Your Way Read: Go it alone and spend a lot more money in the process. “When Ferrari races, it needs to do the whole car,” Coletta told top team back in June. Simple as that, then. We look forward to seeing the results.