Ferrari’s sportscar technical director Ferdinando Cannizzo said the Italian marque doesn’t take any consolation from being the highest-placed LMH car in the Qatar 1812km, a race in which LMDh cars from Porsche and Cadillac swept the top four positions.
AF Corse’s new privately-entered Ferrari 499P finished fifth ahead of the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID, while the two factory cars ended up seventh and 13th in the final order after being hit with unrelated penalties.
All three cars from Ferrari’s stable finished at least a lap down on the winning Porsche Penske 963 of Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer.
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“The difference in performance was so big that there was no strategy that we could play to offset such a big gap in performance,” Cannizzo explained. “On that side it's very tough. It's quite frustrating for us, of course.”
He added: “I don't want to put some sweet[ner] on this very bitter day. I think we really had to make quite a special race considering the situation.
“When you are behind you are trying to invent something because you are trying to be ready for something to happen, but no safety car happened, so [there was] no opportunity for neutralisation.
“We are happy that as an LMH car we are there. But as long as we are competing also with the [other] platform we try to be within the same potential.”
Source: Autosport