Ferrari to continue AF Corse alliance for LMH programme
Ferrari's Le Mans Hypercar will be run by long-term partner AF Corse on the marque's return to prototype racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2023.
The Italian manufacturer has revealed that it will be continuing a relationship with AF Corse that stretches back to 2006 and has encompassed its factory GTE Pro campaigns in the WEC since the rebirth of the series in 2012.
The Ferrari LMH prototypes will be entered under the 'Ferrari - AF Corse' banner in what was described in Monday's announcement as a collaborative effort between the team and the manufacturer's Competizioni GT department, which is masterminding the new programme.
Ferrari sportscar racing boss Antonello Coletta described the latest news, which follows on from the announcement of the LMH programme in February, as "an important step towards the debut of our LMH in the WEC".
"We are happy to have a reliable partner like AF Corse with us for this project," he said. "Ferrari and AF Corse have enjoyed a solid relationship for a long time, as you can see in the FIA WEC, where we run our official 488 GTEs together with the Piacenza-based team.
"We look forward to continuing together on a journey as rewarding as the years of racing cooperation to date."
AF boss Amato Ferrari added: "We are proud of this announcement. It is the crowning of a dream and recognition of the great effort made over the years.
"Our partnership with Ferrari is a winning one that began in 2006, and I am delighted to continue it in the LMH project."
AF has taken the manufacturers' GT crown in the WEC for Ferrari a total of five times, most recently in 2017, as well as a trio of drivers' titles. The partnership between Ferrari and AF has also yielded a trio of GTE Pro victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
AF has experience of running prototypes in the WEC and beyond. The team ran the PeCom Racing LMP2 squad in the Le Mans Series in 2011 and then in the WEC in 2012 and '13, using first Lola and then Oreca chassis. Most recently it oversaw the Cetilar Racing P2 entry in the world championship with a Dallara.
Ferrari and AF will continue their existing programme in GTE Pro with the 488 GTE up to the end of the 2022 season.
Related video
Toyota gets BoP performance hit for Portimao
GM will reveal sportscar programs for 2023 “soon”
Why F1-snubbed Davidson has no regrets in retirement
He may not have won the Le Mans 24 Hours - falling agonisingly short in 2016 - and didn't get the opportunities in Formula 1 his talents merited. But after calling time on his professional career last month, Anthony Davidson says his pride in his performances with Peugeot and Toyota in LMP1 mean more than the results he achieved
Why Le Mans didn't decide Toyota's WEC title outcome in 2021
Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez scored a second successive FIA World Endurance Championship title in the #7 Toyota, as its new Le Mans Hypercar went unbeaten. Motorsport.com recaps how each of the four classes in the 2021 season were won and picks out the best LMH and GTE drivers
The unanswered questions that define WEC 2021's controversial ending
OPINION: The deeply unsatisfying ending to a brilliant World Endurance Championship GTE Pro battle in Bahrain had Ferrari provisionally heading back from the desert as the victor. But Porsche plans to appeal the outcome, which rests on a number of confusing elements that have yet to be satisfactorily explained.
How the WEC's heavyweight duel reached its controversial flashpoint
The Ferrari versus Porsche fight for the FIA World Endurance Championship's GTE Pro title had been a finely-poised affair, right up until Alessandro Pier Guidi's punt on Michael Christensen in the closing stages of the Bahrain 8 Hours handed Ferrari a provisional title, pending Porsche's appeal. Here's how the controversy played out.
The remarkable fixes Toyota used to avert another Le Mans disaster
The 1-2 finish achieved by Toyota at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours was a result that will have surprised few, given its status as pre-event favourite. But the result was anything but straightforward, as worsening fuel pressure concerns required the team's drivers and engineers to pursue "creative fixes" on the fly. Here is the full story of how it reached the end without a lengthy pit visit
The 10 greatest drives of lost legend Jo Siffert
It's 50 years since Jo Siffert was killed in his prime at Brands Hatch. The Swiss scored just two world championship wins in a Formula 1 career spent largely with privateer teams, but showed on numerous occasions in single-seaters and in sportscars with Porsche that he could beat any of the best drivers of his era given the right equipment.
Inside the Le Mans finish too barmy for Hollywood
Team WRT has been at the forefront of GT racing for years and made a successful move to prototypes for 2021, capped by an LMP2 win on its Le Mans debut. It could've been even better had the race been one lap shorter, when its cars ran 1-2, but the stranger-than-fiction reality has spurred the team to reach greater heights.
Why Toyota's Le Mans victory was not as simple as it looked
Toyota scored its fourth Le Mans 24 Hours victory and a 1-2, with the #7 car of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez beating the #8. But although it looked straightforward from the outside, Toyota faced serious problem that had to be solved with some quick-thinking and ingenuity.