Ferrari Confident It Can Avoid Repeat of Imola Strategy Errors

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Ferrari is confident it will be able to avoid a repeat of its strategic missteps in last year’s FIA World Endurance Championship round at Imola, with both drivers and management saying the brand has taken steps forward after letting victory slip through its fingers.

The Prancing Horse was in a strong position to win its home race when WEC visited Imola for the first time in 2024, running 1-2 before a decision to remain out on slicks during a mid-race rain shower cost the 499Ps significant time to rivals.

While Toyota claimed an unlikely victory, Ferrari was left licking its wounds, although it would later say that the lessons learned in Italy played a role in securing its second consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans victory.

Miguel Molina, who leads the Hypercar drivers’ standings after leading Ferrari’s 1-2-3 in the Qatar 1812km, said the brand is “much more prepared than last year” coming back to Imola.

“I think last year was some decisions that we couldn’t take the right ones, let’s say,” Molina said.

“But at the end, in Le Mans, we also experienced the same situation. All the decisions that we made there were the correct ones.

“So I think we improved as a team, as I always say, it’s still in a learning curve for us.

“One of the youngest teams in the championship in this category, so still developing and still learning from the championship.

“So it’s part of the game, part of the process. I think we arrived much more prepared than last year.”

AF Corse team manager Batti Pregliasco, meanwhile, noted that Ferrari “learned” from last year’s events, noting that conclusions were drawn after the team made a wrong call.

“In sport, in work, in life, you learn about your faults,” Pregliasco said.

“You fall down, you stand up and go ahead and understand what you did wrong and to try to progress.

“Of course, we made a mistake last year, a judgement mistake that was not just done for chance. We had some information, we analysed and we decided.

“I say ‘we’ because we don’t want to [point the] finger [at] one people or one decision. So we as a team made a decision that was not a good one.

“Despite the qualifying, despite the performance of the car, despite that we are in front of our public and fans that push the driver even more to the limit and this happened.

“You saw during the rest of the season that we were really performing. We learned. We are here back again and try to do our best.

“The start of the season I think is showing that we are competitive. We are leading the championship in both drivers’ and manufacturers’ standings.

“Of course, it’s a long way, but we are starting with a good step.”

With some forecasts again predicting rain for Sunday’s race, the weather could potentially present Ferrari, as well as its rivals, with a similar scenario compared to 12 months ago.

Mauro Barbieri, Ferrari’s performance and regulations manager, struck a confident tone, explaining that such weather conditions would present the brand with “perfect opportunity to show that we learned from our mistakes.”

“Last year in terms of performance, I think we were there,” said Barbieri.

“We had a good pace. We had a poor execution. We didn’t make the right calls at the right time.

“I would say that the main expectation is to show, first of all, to us, to ourselves, that the team improved in that respect and that we are able to make better decisions at the right time.

“I think the changeable weather this year, similar to last year, is giving us the perfect opportunity to show that we learned from our mistakes from last year and that we improved as a team learning from those mistakes.

“As I said, first of all we want to show that to ourselves and hopefully this will lead to a better result than last year.”