Ferrari Le Mans Hypercar Will Be Revealed At Imola On October 30

Oct. 08, 2022 7:29 AM ET by Sebastian Cenizo Motorsport / 1 Comment

The Italian automaker's World Endurance Championship hybrid racer will debut at the Ferrari World Finals.

As we get closer to the end of the year and the beginning of the 2023 World Endurance Championship season opener, more and more manufacturers are revealing their plans for the new hybrid hypercar era. We've already seen Acura's entry to the series, and BMW showed off its M Hybrid V8 race car last month. But what about Ferrari's entrant? We got our first look at the car in June, and now the Italian automaker has said that the new car will be revealed at the final of the Ferrari World Finals at Imola, finishing that series' season off with a bang.

Testing of the new racer began at Fiorano, Ferrari's own test track, in July, but an official name has not yet been released. Since testing began, the prototype has been spotted lapping at Mugello, Imola, Barcelona, and most recently, Portimao. Speaking with Motorsport.com recently, Ferrari's sports car racing division's boss, Antonello Coletta, has revealed that, since testing began, the car has covered more than 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles).

"We have surpassed 10,000 km, which I consider an important milestone," said Coletta. "The time we have had is not insignificant, but we will have to do a lot more because there is the matter of accumulating experience and developing in parallel using what we have learned in the field. Having said that, we didn't set ourselves a mileage target to complete the work on the car; the more, the better."

The long-term goal is that tech from this series will inform the next generation of Ferrari road cars, possibly something like a successor to the Daytona SP3.

This testing regimen is unlikely to slow as the year progresses, as Ferrari needs to maximize the little time it has left before the car's official race debut at Sebring in March. "We took to the track in the first few days of July, while others have been running for over a year," notes the racing boss. "Every 10 days or so, we are on the track, and we will do it as long as we can before going to Sebring. It's essential to run every day because you really discover so many new things, so you have to make the changes and then go back to the track to check them."

He also noted that there are some special challenges for Ferrari, as it chose to enter the Hypercar series with LMH rules, while LMDh regulations "call for a slightly simpler car." As for who will pilot the new racer, Ferrari has not yet decided - "the choice of drivers will probably be made at the end of the year."