[WEC] Ferrari Hypercar Discussion

[Aysedasi]

All F1 line-up? Not convinced about that......

[Hawkwood]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

All F1 line-up? Not convinced about that......

Aye, but only one of them is likely to be an F1 driver by then

[kdr]

I wonder if there are any other drivers who have ever been linked to Ferrari who might be available by then..





Lobs in grenade and stands well back

[NaBUru38]

Maybe Raikkonen?

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by kdr

I wonder if there are any other drivers who have ever been linked to Ferrari who might be available by then..





Lobs in grenade and stands well back

Hmm, so who might you be thinking of?

Rubens?
Felipe?
Salo?
Mansell?

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Hmm, so who might you be thinking of?

Rubens?
Felipe?
Salo?
Mansell?

Badoer

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by kdr

I wonder if there are any other drivers who have ever been linked to Ferrari who might be available by then..





Lobs in grenade and stands well back

I think this is referring to Hamilton?

There's more chance of him going banger racing than signing up for Le Mans I reckon.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Badoer

I so nearly suggested Luca.......

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Simmi

I think this is referring to Hamilton?

There's more chance of him going banger racing than signing up for Le Mans I reckon.

Linked to Ferrari? Only in the dreams of forum members......

[kdr]

I was only joking, Le Mans 2023 is going to be chaotic enough already..

[NaBUru38]

Maybe Marc Gené and Brendon Hartley.

[Aysedasi]

I can't see Gené being in the frame. What has he been doing this last 7 years?

[canaglia]

Gene is currently a ferrari f1 simulator driver/developer even if he is actually more involved in PR duties as ferrari representative.
For manufacturers hypercar/lmdh programs I would exclude >40 drivers like gene, sarrazin, bourdais etc... likely will be picked drivers with a lot of lmp2/lmp1 experience or coming from single seat champs like F2, indy, FE or former f1 drivers.
Speaking about ferrari, I think one among fuoco, ilott, shwartzman and leclerc little borther will be involved in the hypercar program. It will be interesting if ferrari will decide to have at least 2 italian drivers as manufacturers use to do to represent their country (kobayashi/nakajima for toyota, duval/vergne for peugeot, many german drivers for porsche and audi in recent past seasons).
Fuoco aside that ran in f2 and he's f1 ferrari third/reserve driver involved in f1 simulator as well, I can't see other potential top lmp1-wise italian drivers at moment if we exclude bruni, marciello or pierguidi that are however GT specialists.

[hondafan37]

With the delay of Le Mans to August 21 and 22, the month that F1 is on vacation, it would be a great opportunity for Leclerc and Sainz to race the AF Corse Ferrari 488s and thus gain experience at Le Mans. AF Corse has only 2 drivers per car for the WEC so they need to name the third driver of each car for Le Mans.

[krzysiek_aleks]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

With the delay of Le Mans to August 21 and 22, the month that F1 is on vacation, it would be a great opportunity for Leclerc and Sainz to race the AF Corse Ferrari 488s and thus gain experience at Le Mans. AF Corse has only 2 drivers per car for the WEC so they need to name the third driver of each car for Le Mans.

We have still 2 years until Hypercar debut. We might assume Ferrari will stick with Leclerc until then, but Sainz? Eeeeeeeeeeeem...

I bet they have already 3rd drives for "regular" rides, but 3rd car for Leclerc, Ilott + someone - why not?

[Cinghio44]

I think Ferrari should place some mix in the drivers seat. I'm not convinced that someone from F1 would be immediately competitive like Hulkeberg did in his winning stint in Le Mans with Porsche. Giving the fact that this Hypercar will have less downforce, drivers like Leclerc, Sainz would need a lot of practice to adapt well in these new Hypercars.

It could be like the old stories when F1 drivers passed to race in DTM and they struggled.

I've not read the names of Calado and Pier Guidi. Again underrated maybe, but both very fast and successfull in the GT programs of Ferrari. I would immediately slot them both in the Hypercar programme

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

With the delay of Le Mans to August 21 and 22, the month that F1 is on vacation, it would be a great opportunity for Leclerc and Sainz to race the AF Corse Ferrari 488s and thus gain experience at Le Mans. AF Corse has only 2 drivers per car for the WEC so they need to name the third driver of each car for Le Mans.

It doesn't work like that, Ferrari F1 program and everything related to that like drivers, engineers, assets, working places and technologies etc... is managed by Scuderia Ferrari actually leaded by Mattia Binotto and Enrico Cardile (team principal and technical director).
Everything related to racing sports cars like WEC GTE program and GT3 is managed by Ferrari Competizioni GT leaded by Antonello Coletta (and its sub-section Corse Clienti involved in FXX programs and ferrari challenge).
Despite both being under the Ferrari S.p.A. umbrella, Scuderia Ferrari is the main and most important subsidiary of the company that each year usually gets >0.5 billion $ to run the f1 program and develope new technologies for both racing and high-end street production.
Compared to the Scuderia, Ferrari gives peanuts budget to Competizioni GT that has mainly organizational duties since most of production/development of sports cars is made by third parties (michelotto for GTE/3) or supplied by ferrari itself (challenge cars).
Apparently Coletta will be in charge of the hypercar program and likely (or hopefully) Competizioni GT will get a huge budget boost because of that, but simply forget to see Leclerc or Sainz inside a 488 GTE this year at le mans for the simple reason f1 drivers are Scuderia Corsa "property" that nothing shares with Competizioni GT stuff.

[Adam43]

He only said it was an opportunity. I’m sure Hondafan understands that for any F1 driver it “doesn’t work like that” to simply race at Le Mans because there is a weekend off from F1 duties, Whether they share the same badge or not.

I mean how many times has a current F1 driver had the opportunity to win Le Mans recently?

[Mike E]

An LMH role for Michelotto? Or is that speculation too far?

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...i-gt-takeover/

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mike E

An LMH role for Michelotto? Or is that speculation too far?



https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...i-gt-takeover/

Hadn't thought of that, but I like it!

[joeb]

More details on racing program structure


https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...r-lmh-program/

[broadrun96]

It's 100% an investment of "extra" F1 moneys and the time spent on the LMH project will be for work on both LMH AND F1 stuff outside of the rules. Exactly what everyone has feared a budget and time cap would do, shuffle the paperwork to make everything appear to work under the rules.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Mike E

An LMH role for Michelotto? Or is that speculation too far?

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...i-gt-takeover/

What date was this published?

[canaglia]

1st april joke, even if in the past oreca competed in GT1 with S7R post 2006 evo specs (which was also the developer/tuner and the official dealer). Not to mention their viper gts days and were also the company hired to produce the viper CC gt3.

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

It's 100% an investment of "extra" F1 moneys and the time spent on the LMH project will be for work on both LMH AND F1 stuff outside of the rules. Exactly what everyone has feared a budget and time cap would do, shuffle the paperwork to make everything appear to work under the rules.

new car old habits, also mercedes is apparently going to drop HWA for the formula E program and bring everything to Brackley