Ferrari have lost pole position for the Six Hours of Spa after their number 50 car was found to be underweight.
Penske Porsche have inherited pole position for the race with their number five car which is shared by Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki.
The Ferrari 499P shared by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen was stripped of all its time in qualifying after it was found to be under the minimum weight limit by around 1kg. The minimum dry weight for the 499P as of this weekend’s race is set at 1,053 kilograms under the WEC’s Balance of Performance rules.
“After having checked the technical delegate report, the stewards considered the minimum car weight did not comply with the relevant regulations,” said the stewards in a statement.
“Consequently, the stewards decided to impose the disqualification of car 50 of the qualifying and hyperpole sessions and the deletion of the lap times of these sessions. The car 50 will start at the back of the Hypercar category.”
Ferrari said they fitted a replacement wing after final practice, which explained why the car no longer met the minimum weight limit.
“After a collision with another car during FP3, the 499P number 50’s damaged rear end had to be replaced with a new component, which led to the weight discrepancy discovered on Friday evening,” the team said in a statement.
Ferrari has confirmed it will not appeal against the decision.
Behind the pole-winning Penske Porsche, the sole Cadillac V-Series.R of Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn has been promoted to the front row. Porsche 963s occupy the next three places on the grid, while the highest-placed Ferrari is now the customer AF Corse machine of Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye in eighth.
World Endurance Championship
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- Penske Porsche poised to clinch title after winning incident-packed Fuji Six Hours
- Hyundai to launch hypercar racing programme under Genesis brand
- Court of Appeal rejects Ferrari’s challenge to WEC Six Hours of Spa result
- Kubica, Shwartzman and Ye grab first win ahead of charging Toyota at COTA
Jonathan Parkin
11th May 2024, 4:58
This is the third WEC race in a row that has had driver disqualifications for one reason or another. Do the teams not know the rules properly? Or is it like F1 which has a too fat rule book?
If this happened in F1 serious questions would get asked
Exediron (@exediron)
11th May 2024, 6:26
Minimum weight is a pretty easy rule to know, so this seems like a sloppy oversight on the part of the team rather than a bloated rulebook.
Matthew Ellis
11th May 2024, 9:21
F1’s rule book is only the size it is due to the sneaky/extremely clever engineers who find ways around the rules. And arguably (for F1 in at least) that is part of the challenge.
And while I do not recall an F1 car being under weight (current crop seem more likely to be overweight), the drivers are frequently reminded to pick up rubber to add weight to their cars once over the finish line, and there are plenty of examples of cars finishing races with less than the minimum fule quantity left.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
11th May 2024, 12:20
Maybe Ferrari will put it down to inexperience, like their tyre choice at Imola. “It’s only our tenth race!”
MichaelN
11th May 2024, 10:37
Replacing the rear wing led to a significant weight saving? That’s a bit odd, no?
Disappointing for Fuoco, who drove an excellent qualifying. On the plus side, it’s a long race!
Jonathan Parkin
11th May 2024, 12:12
Not as long as LeMans that seems to take all day
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th May 2024, 14:32
it was later found that someone had their foot on one of the scales when they hit the tear button. This kind of stuff is exactly why Europe won’t be around as it is in 20 years.
SteveR (@stever)
11th May 2024, 16:54
It’s ‘tare’. Nothing will be as it is in 20 years.