Ferrari issued a veiled criticism of the World Endurance Championship’s latest Balance of Performance adjustment following their defeat in yesterday’s Six Hours of Monza.
The latest change to the series’ performance-balancing rules added 5kg to the minimum weight of the team’s 499P prototypes following their victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The cars also had their power outputs cut by 10kW compared to the previous race and their permitted energy usage during a stint was cut by 8MJ.Rivals Toyota had no changes to their weight and energy usage limits, but had a 5kW reduction in their power output.
Ferrari said they expected to be allowed to contest their home race under the same Balance of Performance restrictions as were used at Le Mans, and the latest change put them at a disadvantage.
“After winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the expectation was to fight in the same conditions as in the French race,” said Ferrari in a statement. “However, the conditions imposed at Monza put the team at a disadvantage compared to its rivals.”
Toyota won the opening three WEC rounds. Its GR010 Hybrids were then reined in by a BoP adjustment prior to Le Mans, where Ferrari won. The number seven Toyota led the number 50 Ferrari home by 16 seconds last Sunday.
Ferrari added that “despite this imposed limitation, a perfect strategy, impeccable work by the mechanics during pit stops and a flawless performance by the drivers gave the fans, more than 65,000 over the course of the weekend, who coloured the stands of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza red, something to celebrate.”
Following yesterday’s race Toyota president Koji Sato said the team “want to show our true performance” and had “frustration in our hearts, since Le Mans”.
“We have all worked together as one to move forward towards the next race,” said Sato. “It was a very important four weeks. Because of that process, we were able to compete as a true team at Monza.”
A further BoP change will be imposed ahead of the next round, which is Toyota’s home race. “In the next round at Fuji, we will do our best under the leadership of Kamui [Kobayashi],” Sato added. “We would like to show the stronger Toyota WEC team in front of many Japanese fans.”
Sato also apologised on behalf of the team for a collision involved its number eight car, which was being driven by Sebastien Buemi when it collided with a rival.
“I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to D’station Racing’s Mr Hoshino, Mr Fujii, Mr Stevenson and everyone involved in the team following the dangerous situation caused by the contact from car number eight, which took away their opportunity to challenge at Monza,” he said. “I sincerely apologise for that. The entire team will reflect and be thoroughly aware so that everyone can race safely.”
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
10th July 2023, 19:12
Ferrari entered a BOP-ed series and all they were given was a Le Mans 24h win.
Poor babies.
Coventry Climax
10th July 2023, 19:23
Yep, it’s rigged, and you signed up for it, full knowing in advance.
Tone
10th July 2023, 23:05
Toyota also signed up for a BOP series with full knowledge as well but didn’t stop them bitching about it either
GeeMac (@geemac)
11th July 2023, 6:47
BOP giveth and it taketh away.
I’d take a win in the Le Mans 24 Hours if it meant my team finished 47th in every other race on the WEC calendar. Le Mans is the big prize, not the WEC title itself. Seeing as Ferrari already have that under their belts, I’m not sure what they are trying to achieve with comments like this…
Yellow Baron
12th July 2023, 1:19
Wouldn’t a success based bop make more sense? Like in British trying cars. Of course they have 3 races in one weekend. But at least it would avoid random tweaking of the bop essentially creating a d8ffbest team every round.
Perhaps they could implement bop but strictly based on results and championship points. And including qualifying as well somehow.
Either way bop is always going to be complicated and car performance will vary track to track anyway so a perfect solution doesn’t exist.
I’m curious has endurance racing always used bop?
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
12th July 2023, 8:31
If that’s not a mini-series on the foibles of the British car industry, it should be.
A long time ago, in a land far away, every motorsport started with a bunch of people competing to build and race cars, preferably to a common and properly governed set of rules.
Martin
11th July 2023, 9:58
I am suprised to have now seen Ferrari and Toyota both complaining about the BOP rules and implying that it is ‘unfair’. What will they complain about next, the pope is catholic?
Obviously it is unfair, it is literally unfairness baked into the rules that they have both accepted to race to. I have never liked the BOP idea, but I assumed the teams taking part fully accepted the idea and that it can take away your ability to win races no matter how well you perform as a team over a race weekend.
I think the teams need to just accept it for what it is or pull out of the series, as the image that they give off with this whining is not good.
Moshambles (@moshambles)
11th July 2023, 10:26
Is a yoke
MichaelN
11th July 2023, 11:47
The BoP has been done very well. If anything the FIA/ACO deserves credit, not moaning from any of the teams.
It’s going to be really annoying if Toyota and now Ferrari keep these theatrics up. In fact, the rules forbid them making these statements. So in the interest of the LMH/LMDh class, let’s see if the FIA/ACO takes a tough stance on this and sanctions both teams.
They all knew what they were signing up for.
Coventry Climax
11th July 2023, 12:05
Sure, dictatorship is the way to go.
MichaelN
11th July 2023, 12:45
They can bring this up in private. Doing it publicly is just going to lead to this taking attention away from the racing. Controversy equals clicks.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
11th July 2023, 22:22
That’s a good thing, the world should know how the FIA/ACO are arbitrarily influencing racing. By exposing it, the race results and the integrity of the championship will be called into question, hopefully leading to a much less influential BoP.
MichaelN
12th July 2023, 8:29
It’s not arbitrary though, it’s meant to have the cars perform equally. And it’s working quite well. That Toyota in particular, and AF Corse as well, have their operations sorted out better is also not a huge surprise given their experience.
We’ll never know how quick each team can theoretically be. That’s not the point of the Hypercar class. Those days are over for sportscar racing. At least for now.
Yaru (@yaru)
11th July 2023, 18:27
They didn’t complain at Le Mans when Toyota were given a larger weight addition than they were and then they went on to win. (mind you Toyota also complained back then)
Fairly sure the whole point of BoP is to nerf cars when they perform well. Ferrari won Le Mans, the biggest race of the series, so of course they’ll get nerfed. I’m surprised they’re surprised.
Roman
17th July 2023, 20:31
Is there any clear rule how they measure BoP and how to calculate it?