The prologue to the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), which effectively opened the 2018-19 Superseason, ended at 4 pm on Saturday afternoon. It was a single 30-hour session during which all Ferrari crews, the two entered in the GTE-Pro class and the three in the GTE-Am, gathered useful data ahead of the first race on 5 May at Spa-Francorchamps.
GTE-Pro. In the GTE-Pro class, world champions James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in car no. 51 built up some confidence in the car under race conditions. They performed setup tests and did some long runs to check out tyre behaviour. Unfortunately the planned program was not completed because of a fire during refuelling on Friday late afternoon. This damaged the car too badly to be repaired on site, so the 51 crew was unable to run on Saturday. Car no. 71 of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird went through the same programme that was completed without major issues.
GTE-Am. In the GTE-Am class, Motoaki Ishikawa and Eddie Cheever III took their first steps in the FIA WEC, guided by a perfect teacher in Olivier Beretta. The Monegasque drove his teammates during the night part of the session, when it was important to get to know the 488 GTE. The other two crews competing in the WEC Superseason also carried out setup and tyre tests: the crew of Spirit of Race, with Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Giancarlo Fisichella, back in the championship after competing in the American IMSA series in recent years, and the Clearwater Racing team again with Weng Sun Mok, Matt Griffin and Keita Sawa.
Superseason. The FIA WEC this season will follow a very particular calendar that will start at Spa-Francorchamps in May to finish with the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2019, for a total of eight races
Source. Ferrari
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