Ferrari’s No. 51 Crew Spirits Boosted by Engineer Continuity

Photo: MPS Agency

James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi are hopeful that Ferrari’s No. 51 crew will be able to start their FIA World Endurance Championship campaign “on the right foot” heading into the season with an unchanged driver lineup and the same engineer compared to last year.

The two drivers, together with Antonio Giovinazzi, will remain part of the same squad of drivers assembled by the Prancing Horse compared to the previous season, with Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina also remaining on board as part of the No. 50 car.

Notably, on the No. 51’s side of the garage, Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi have kept Baptiste Allain as their race engineer, something Calado has previously been hopeful about. 

Allain joined Ferrari last year after previously serving as a race engineer for the Nissan Formula E operation, notably working with both Norman Nato and Sebastien Buemi, who drive for Cadillac and Toyota in WEC, respectively.

He replaced Justin Taylor, the American engineer that guided the No. 51 Ferrari 499P to its victory in the centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans before leaving for Cadillac, with Calado describing that as the latest in a rotation of engineers for himself and Pier Guidi in recent years.

“We knew straight away that our technical guys on our side were really superb last year,” said Calado.

“All the guys and mechanics, they’re really good. So obviously we pushed because we want to continue that on, because most years the engineer kind of somewhat disappears.

“Since GTs we’ve always had different engineers so I wanted to stress that it was important to carry on and build the relationship and I think Baptiste is one of the best for sure.

“He understands the car and the team really well and I think I’m really happy to continue with the same line up as last year.

Calado’s comments were echoed by Pier Guidi, who explained that a change on the engineering side always comes with a period of unfamiliarity, which he hopes can be avoided this year with the “better knowledge” gained during the 2024 season.

“It’s not easy when you start the season, especially the first couple of races,” Pier Guidi told Sportscar365.

“Everything is new, you need to to learn how to work [with] the new engineer and the engineer has to learn how we work.

“It’s more complicated so it takes a bit of time, while this year luckily we stay the same. So we have a better knowledge of each other and I think it’s very important to start the season on the right foot.

“Especially last year where our engineer arrived very last moment, almost in Qatar we met. So it was a bit more difficult for everyone. While this year I think at least it’s easier.”

Calado added that he expects it will allow the No. 51 crew to be ‘more in its comfort zone’ from the early stages of the campaign.

“You’re not spending time trying to get to know somebody,” he said.

“Now we know each other and you can be more honest, more open. You can talk about more things.

“We saw already the performance last year was strong. In terms of pace, we were really, really good. And we just want to continue that going into this year.”

Pier Guidi Hoping for “Smoother” Year for No. 51 Crew

Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi finished eighth in the Hypercar drivers’ standings last year, with third place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans the best result of the season for the No. 51 car.

The rest of the season consisted of two non-finishes in the U.S. and Japan, while they were also stripped of a second-place finish in the Bahrain season finale.

“I hope this year will be smoother than last year,” Pier Guidi said.

“Actually, in terms of performance, it was okay. I can not complain about the performance, but we didn’t score the points that we could score for the performance we had.

“Sometimes for our mistakes, sometimes for something that was not in our control, or sometimes just being not lucky.

“But in the end, I think the target has to be score the points that we can do with our performance. There are some tracks that are better for us and we need to maximise the points.

“And [at the tracks where] we are not really the favourite, we need to defend and try to score some points that at the end of the season are really important. I think just doing this, we can fight to the end.”