What the technical director said
Ferrari has presented the 2026 livery of the 499P Hypercar, which will have to defend the clean sweep of titles recorded in 2025 by the Maranello Scuderia, which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the third consecutive time, also taking a ‘full house’ regarding the titles at stake in the World Endurance Championship.
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Compared to 2025, the regulations feature some innovations, above all the new Michelin tires. The technical director of the Maranello Scuderia, Ferdinando Cannizzo, spoke about it extensively; here are his words.
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The races where we suffered in 2025 are the ones that gave us the most ideas for improvement – said technical director Ferdinando Cannizzo – to this is added the fact that we had to re-homologate the car, and that we will use new tires. The Federation decided to re-measure all the cars in a new wind tunnel in the USA: this led to a repositioning of the 499P in the performance window, which will have to be understood and adapted in terms of set-up. Consequently, we have new aerodynamics: although with small changes, it differs significantly in the car’s behavior. To re-center the aerodynamic performance in the new window, we worked on some areas of the 499P, mainly the floor, to reach the drag and downforce targets required by the regulations. The new window involved a recalibration of the aerodynamic map, so we will have to find the best balance that has always characterized the 499P. As for the new Michelin tires, we will have to find not only the correlation between the wind tunnel and the track data, but also a new match between the car setup and the tires themselves. So far we haven’t had the chance to fully explore all the compounds, having basically tested the medium compound. There is an improvement in terms of tire warm-up, but we have not yet fully understood the impacts on the car’s balance, a job that we will complete in the period leading up to the start of the championship.”
