Ferrari 499P Hypercar Unveiled

Ferrari have taken the wraps off their race-liveried Hypercar for the first time, with confirmation too that the new-for-2023 car will be named the Ferrari 499P.

The car was revealed at a gala dinner at Imola as part of the festivities for Ferrari’s annual Finali Mondiali festival.

Liveried in red with yellow detailing, a livery which is intended to link the 499P with the 312P colour scheme from the early 1970s, the car will feature in a two-car full-season and multi-year FIA World Endurance Championship effort from 2023, fielded by Ferrari-AF Corse.

The cars, which will be numbered #50 and #51, are set to be crewed by a yet-to-be-confirmed six driver crew, all of whom will come from within the current Ferrari driver ‘family’. Whilst the #51 is a well established number for the Ferrari factory efforts in GTE Pro, #50 refers directly to the half century since Ferrari last fielded a full-factory, top-class prototype effort in international Sportscar racing, the 312P of 1973.

The 499P, confirmed as having a 120 degree turbo V6 engine, based around the architecture of the unit that powers the road going Ferrari 296 GTB, is in the midst of an intensive test programme which has seen the initial test car rack up over 12,000 km so far, a second 499P introduced to the test programme just last week at Monza.

The six driver factory squad will be revealed at a later date but is confirmed to include only drivers from within the Ferrari ‘family’.

Ferrari also confirmed at Imola that there will be no customer cars in the first season for the car, an assessment of the potential for customer programmes will be made later in 2023.

The interest in obtaining a customer 499P was revealed to be “significant with a senior source confirming that this included potential owners interested in both FIA WEC and IMSA.

Risi Competizione owner Guiseppe Risi has stated publicly that his team are interested in evaluating a potential Ferrari GTP programme.

John Elkann, Ferrari Executive Chairman: “The 499P sees us return to compete for outright victory in the WEC series. When we decided to commit to this project, we embarked on a path of innovation and development, faithful to our tradition that sees the track as the ideal terrain to push the boundaries of cutting-edge technological solutions, solutions that in time will be transferred to our road cars. We enter this challenge with humility, but conscious of a history that has taken us to over 20 world endurance titles and 9 overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”.

Antonello Coletta, Head of Ferrari Attività Sportive GT: “The 499P is a dream come true. Today is an important moment for all the people who have worked so hard on this project over the past two years.

“We wanted to pay homage to our history, with many references, both large and small, to a past made up of successes and titles. We do so, however, looking ahead, creating a manifesto of our commitment to the world endurance championship. The 499P is a prototype that is decidedly Ferrari, in the fullest sense of the term, and it gives us an enormous thrill to finally show it to our clients and to the many enthusiasts of the marque”.

Ferdinando Cannizzo, Head of Ferrari GT Track Car Development: “For the whole team and myself, this is a really thrilling moment. We know that we have a huge responsibility. We have designed and engineered a car that is brand new and particularly complex in every aspect.

“This unprecedented challenge motivated everyone into an all-encompassing, all-sharing collaboration involving every department of our company and our technical partners. Starting from a blank sheet of paper was a source of unique and continuous motivation in order to find effective solutions to guarantee the 499P’s performance and reliability.

“From the very first shakedown to the first race, we have planned a very intense development programme, both on the test bench and on the track, which has given us some interesting feedback. The work of synthesis that awaits us over the coming weeks, and which will see us involved in further track testing, is the most important for fine-tuning and the final integration of all the systems.

“We still have a lot of kilometres to go, but the team is aware of the importance of the project and will continue to show commitment, passion, maturity and great professionalism.”