How Ferrari’s sneaky pitlane swap exposed a rules blind spot

In football you play to the whistle; in motor racing you race to the rulebook. That’s what Ferrari did with its sneaky pitlane swap at the Spa World Endurance Championship round on Saturday. Allowing one of its cars to overtake the other in the pitlane isn’t prohibited in the regulations. Whether you think its actions were anywhere between unsporting and downright dangerous, the fact is Ferrari didn’t break any rules.

Ferrari and the AF Corse factory team did what they had to do at a crunch moment of the Spa 6 Hours. No criticism should be levelled at them in my mind. The rights and wrongs of its actions in terms of the dangers it may or may not have created is another question entirely.

In case you weren’t following round three of the 2025 WEC, here’s what happened. Both Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercars pitted under a caution period as the race hit the halfway mark. There was no Virtual Safety Car leading into it this time, which resulted in all the leading runners in Hypercar ducking into the pits as soon as they opened.

Ferrari had a problem, though. The #50 car with Miguel Molina at the wheel was running directly ahead of #51 driven by Antonio Giovinazzi. But its pitstalls were the other way around: #51 was nearest to pit-out.

That meant it faced having to pull #51 back into position to refuel and change tyres. And then #50 would probably have lost time exiting the pits because it was blocked in behind the sister car.

Ferrari’s answer was to get Molina to move over in the pits into what is called the blend lane and let team-mate Giovinazzi past, a highly unusual occurrence. It avoided what Ferrari suggested would have been disastrous pitstops for the two 499Ps.

Overtaking under a safety car is prohibited on track, of course, but nowhere does it say that it is not allowed in the pits. Even so, Ferrari took a bit of a flier in the knowledge that its actions would be investigated by the stewards.

The Ferrari switch was quick thinking but questionable

Photo by: Shameem Fahath

It admitted as much and prepared for the possibility of a penalty: Alessandro Pier Guidi in #51 left the pits ahead of Antonio Fuoco in #50, but they were quickly told to swap positions - on track this time - to allow Fuoco to push on and build a buffer in case there was a penalty.

Ferrari was happy to risk a penalty in order to win at Spa. It would have blunted the challenge of one car rather than the two if they had arrived at their pits the wrong way around.

Any real punishment was avoided, however. Ferrari and Molina received a reprimand, a fairly meaningless sanction.

It’s no good if the stewards told Ferrari that they were going to issue a reprimand this time followed by “but don’t do it again”. A precedent has been set. What happens if another team or manufacturer pulls the same trick somewhere down the line?

Ferrari received this slap on a wrist under a wishy-washy catch-all clause in the sporting regs. A paragraph headlined “Unsporting conduct” allows the race director to bring to the attention of the stewards behaviour that is “deemed contrary to the spirit of the sport and fair play, even if the person concerned demands the literal application of the present regulations”.

The stewards ruled that the manoeuvre constituted what they called “a misuse of the pitlane”. It is not a place, they went on in the bulletin confirming the reprimand, “where overtaking between competitors should occur” and that the switch “was carried out in disregard of pitlane safety”.

They pointed out in the bulletin that the #20 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh with Robin Frijns at the wheel had to hit the brakes to avoid Molina as he cut back into the fast lane. Footage also revealed that a Toyota lollipop man took a step towards the garage as Molina passed perilously close by. His distraction may or may not have played a part in the confused Toyota pitstop that followed: he initially stopped Kamui Kobayashi rather than Ryo Hirakawa in the sister car in the wrong stall.

It seems bizarre that overtaking in the pitlane should not be prohibited, 80km/h (50mph) speed limit or no. Pitlanes are dangerous places given the close proximity of cars and people, doubly so when a large part of the field pits en masse during an endurance race.

The majority of WEC pitlanes are a tight squeeze at the best of times - let along a mass pitting in a safety car period

Photo by: Andreas Beil

Yet there is an obvious reason why overtaking in the pitlane isn’t specifically banned. Given that all the cars will be pretty much bang on the 80km/h limit, it is only going to happen when there is collusion between cars from the same team. So it’s hardly going to be a regular occurrence and not everything can be covered by a regulation. Ferrari, however, insisted that there have been examples in the past.

It also admitted that perhaps the rules need to be tidied up. “It is probably something we need to discuss,” said Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari’s sportscar race and testing manager after the race.

Too right. It’s no good if the stewards told Ferrari that they were going to issue a reprimand this time followed by “but don’t do it again”. A precedent has been set. What happens if another team or manufacturer pulls the same trick somewhere down the line? It’s clear what they are going to say: “But Ferrari did it…”

There’s an irony that 12 months ago Ferrari was undone by the rulebook when it looked well on the way to winning at Spa. The decision to restart the race after the prescribed finish time ultimately undid its victory aspirations.

Ferrari cried foul and protested, unsuccessfully. It interpreted the rules differently to race control and also your author. But then I’m neither a lawyer nor a race strategist. It was interesting that in the immediate aftermath of the race an engineer, largely retired now, rang me up to ask what the hell was going on. His view was very much that Ferrari’s interpretation was the correct one.

A rewording of the rules was clearly needed. There have been changes to the relevant clause, though I would hardly call them a clarification. I’m not, however, confused by the extra words added to the regulation precluding manufacturers, teams and drivers from talking about the Balance of Performance. They represent a further tightening of that rule. Priorities, anyone?

Ferrari did what it had to do to win last weekend’s Spa 6 Hours. It played to the whistle. Now it’s the turn of the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, who jointly run the WEC, to do what they have to do.

Whether that’s with a change in the regulations or strict dos and don’ts in the race director’s pre-event briefing notes, as per Formula 1, one thing is for sure. The pitlane is not a place for overtaking.

The switch worked out for Ferrari as it sealed a 1-2 at Spa

Photo by: AG Photo - Daniele Paglino