Ilott sees 2021 as a “good time” to join Ferrari sports cars – Sportscar365

Photo: Ferrari

Ferrari Formula 1 test driver Callum Ilott believes he’s getting onto the GT racing scene at a “good time” with Ferrari’s Le Mans hypercar program on the horizon in 2023.

Ilott made his debut in sports car races last weekend at the 3 Hours of Monza, which opened the new Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe, powered by the AWS Endurance Cup season.

The Briton, who finished second in FIA Formula 2 with Mick Schumacher last year, told Sportscar365 that he had enjoyed his move to a new discipline for his racing program in 2021 so far and described the race in Monza under mixed conditions as a “baptism of Fire”.

When asked if he views GT racing as a long-term career option, Ilott was noncommittal, but showed interest in Ferrari’s LMH involvement and said his current program is a good place given Maranello’s future plans.

“I’m still on the F1 side and I hope there will be a lot of it in the coming weeks,” he said. “But I’ve now concentrated on the GT side.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to experience the GT side of life with a competitive car with competitive teammates in a very, very competitive championship. It’s very, very tight.

“It’s great timing that on this side it is crucial to have the experience now when I have these career paths from GTs or hypercars or any other situation.

“It’s almost at the end. It is a good mastery to learn, and very competitive and rewarding if you do very well.

“We’ll see what the route is like. While I’m here, I’m pushing as much as I can to learn and develop on the GT side. My background is single-seaters right now and there are still good chances to continue the F1 route.

“Honestly, if I could give an answer, I would. I have to play both sides. But right now I’m enjoying that and it’s something completely different.

“It’s a great atmosphere and something I’ll get used to.”

Ilott won three Formula 2 races with UNI-Virtuosi Racing last year and finished 14 points behind serial champion Schumacher, who has since taken an F1 seat with Haas.

The 22-year-old was named a Ferrari F1 tester in December and will offset that role with his five Endurance Cup races for Iron Lynx, including a total of 24 Hours of Spa.

Describing Ferrari’s involvement in LMH as an “exciting project”, although still in the early stages, Ilott suggested that racing in GTs would give him a mixed racing background that could be a useful asset to the prototypes at the highest level .

“Firstly, for sport, for Ferrari itself, it’s a great opportunity,” he said. “From that side, it’s going to be really interesting from a progressive point of view to see this, and it’s going to give that side a lot more attention.

“I can imagine it as a car [will be] Very nice to drive as we saw the full potential of the LMP1 cars after racing history was up and setting the times that it really could.

“From my point of view, I can see what’s going on. I don’t know much about the situation other than what you hear on the news as it is new to all of us.

“We will see more in the future. Every race track is an interesting track. Right now I’m into GTs and GTs are very different from F1 and Hypercars are more like the GT side.

“For me, it’s a good time to get into the GT side of things and endurance racing if that’s the path for me. At least I can gain some experience on this site.

“The single-seat background helps because as a car to drive, it’s probably more like this side than a GT car.

“It’s definitely of interest to me, but right now the GT stuff, the F1 commitments and then we’ll see, maybe in the middle of next year, whether that is the case or not.

“It’s definitely an exciting project for Ferrari and overall an exciting project that I wouldn’t say no to at all.”

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365 who covers the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship, AWS’s GT World Challenge Europe and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among others.