Ferrari appeals the rejection of its protest after the 6 Hours of Spa – The restart cost AF Corse a potential one-two finish
Ferrari has appealed against the rejection of its protest at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in the World Endurance Championship. The manufacturer is thus exercising its right to appeal against the decision. This was confirmed by Antonello Coletta, head of the Ferrari sports car program, in Le Mans.
The FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), which jointly organize the WEC, have not yet issued an official statement on the appeal. Coletta emphasizes that it is still too early to go into details.
“Yes, we have lodged a complaint and we have lodged an appeal,” he said on Wednesday ahead of the opening practice session of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “At the moment we prefer not to talk about details and, to be fair, we don’t have a date for the hearing [at the International Court of Appeal] yet.”
There, he is calling for clarification of the regulations. The 6-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps continued beyond the scheduled finish time of 7pm. The race only ended shortly before 9pm. The WEC justified this with a show for the fans and – which might sound like a mockery to Ferrari – with sporting fairness.
In a statement after the race, the FIA said that the decision to run the Spa 6-hour race over the full distance “ensures sporting fairness for the participants who have defined their strategies for a 6-hour race. Shortening the race distance would mean that some participants would win and others would lose. “
Ferrari was the victim of this decision. The Ferrari 499P had been leading the race until the interruption. However, as the two Porsches that finished the race in first and second place had already made their penultimate pit stop, the factory-entered AF Corse cars dropped back to third and fourth place. “
Different decisions in the event of weather interruptions
The extension of the race distance in the WEC was a novelty at Spa. Ferrari refers to the races in Fuji 2013 (rain chaos behind the safety car) and Sebring 2022 (aborted due to a thunderstorm). In Spa, however, the reason for the red flag was not the weather, but the repair of a barrier after the accident involving Earl Bamber and Sean Gelael.
The sporting regulations of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) state: “If circumstances so require, the stewards may decide to stop the race and/or change the time. This must not exceed the duration of the race [i.e. six hours].”
It must now be clarified what exactly is meant by this: may the total time of the race including the interruption not exceed six hours or only the net race time? This must now be clarified in the appeal proceedings.
“We need to be clear about the interpretation for the future,” says Coletta. “The most important thing is that we have clarity about the rules. We need to know exactly what is going to happen so that we can make the right decisions.”
He describes the decision to restart the race ten minutes before the originally planned finish as “surprising and completely unexpected”.
It is the second appeal in endurance racing against a race result within a few weeks. Rowe Racing has appealed against the result of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring.