Ferrari leaves Japan with tenth place for the number 51 499P as its best result at the Fuji 6 Hours, the third-to-last round of the FIA WEC 2026. At the chequered flag, the number 83 car in its yellow livery entered by AF Corse finished twelfth, while the other 499P of the official Ferrari – AF Corse team, number 50, was forced to retire early.
The Fuji 6 Hours proved complex for the 499Ps, which started outside the Top-10 after qualifying was cancelled due to the weather conditions, with the starting grid established based on the free practice sessions times.
The team, coming off pole position and a win at Austin, worked by differentiating the strategies in an attempt to close the gap to its rivals. This was particularly the case with the choice of tyres, with the number 50 and 51 499Ps opting at the start for “mixed” solutions, fitting Medium and Soft compounds, while number 83 started with four Medium tyres.
Despite this, the Ferraris endured an uphill race and were unable to join the battle for the leading positions.
The reigning World Drivers’ Champions, James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi – who took turns at the wheel in this order – finished tenth, 26.443 seconds behind the leader, with a 10-second penalty applied after the finish for two contacts that occurred during the middle hours.
Twelfth were official Ferrari drivers Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson, sharing the crew with Robert Kubica, who crossed the line one lap down, incurred during the middle stages of the race, when the intervention of the Safety Car did not work in the yellow 499P’s favour.
Fuoco-Molina-Nielsen’s race was affected first by an issue during the pit stop in the third hour, followed by a technical problem that forced the Spanish driver to stop the car at the side of the track less than two hours from the end.
In the championship, the number 51 crew lies seventh with 59 points, 40 points behind the leader, while number 50 drops to ninth with 54 points. The number 83 of AF Corse is instead fifteenth with 31 points. In the Manufacturers’ Championship standings, Ferrari remains third with 115 points, 54 points behind the leader.
The next round will take place on 18 October in Barcelona, with a six-hour race.
James Calado, 499P #51: “Everything that could go wrong went wrong. The choice of tyres at the start was perhaps not ideal, but we could still have made it work, had it not been for the many restarts after the Safety Car. It was very difficult to get the tyres back up to temperature. Then we had two penalties, which we could not serve in the pits again because of the neutralisation, which cancelled out the gaps and worked against us in this sense. We will quickly put this race behind us and look ahead.”.
Nicklas Nielsen, 499P #50: “It was a really complicated race for us, first with the problem at the pit stop and then with the car stopping on the track. We did not achieve the best result we could have: we are aware of that and we will have to work to do better in the last two races”.
Antonello Coletta, Global Head of Endurance and Corse Clienti: “The Fuji race was very difficult and we are aware that we made some mistakes, as well as having an issue with reliability. We need to take stock quickly and finish the season on a high, trying to give our all in the two remaining races. Congratulations to our rivals on the win.”
Ferdinando Cannizzo, Head of Endurance Race Cars: “We expected Fuji to be a difficult track and we saw this already in the free practice sessions. The race proved difficult and was particularly affected by the problem we had with the number 50 car, the one that was best placed. On the other hand, this race has a lot to teach us, because we made several choices that were not ideal and will need to be reviewed to make us more incisive in the future. Congratulations to Toyota, which made better use of the neutralisation phases.”
