The 2023 6 Hours of Fuji race saw the two Ferraris being lapped by the lead Toyota #7. It appeared that the performance gap between the 499P and the GR010 has widened since the previous race at Monza. However, in an interview for motorsport.com Ferrari’s race and test team manager Giuliano Salvi explains that the relative performance of the two teams has not changed and at Monza Ferrari's deficit was masked by the three safety car (SC) periods which erased the gap build-up during the previous race period. Indeed the race at Fuji was unusual because it only saw one very short SC period. 

In a second interview, posted on motorsport.com, Toyota's technical director Pascal Vasselon expressed opinion that it was driver inconsistency that was the reason behind Ferrari's poor performance at Fuji.

We use the data from the elapsed 2023 season, generously provided by FIA WEC and Al Kamel Systems SL, to verify these claims.

Figure 1 shows the difference between the median lap times shown by the highest finishing Toyota and Ferrari at every race in 2023 so far. The difference is in seconds per lap and positive values indicate that the Ferrari was faster hence the red color bars. Ferrari enjoyed a lap time advantage on only two venues this year: Spa and Le Mans. As was discussed in this article, at Spa Toyota were most likely not showing their true pace, evident from the fastest lap done by Kamui Kobayashi. This leaves the 24 Hours of Le Mans as the only event when Ferrari did have performance advantage and they did well capitalising on it.

Contrary to the claim by their own team manager, the performance deficit Ferrari had to Toyota at Monza has actually grown more that twice at Fuji!

At Monza, the last SC period ended on lap 143. If in the remaining 57 laps the #7 Toyota was pulling away from #50 Ferrari at the rate shown on Figure 1- 0.195 seconds per lap, it would have finished 11.1 seconds ahead. In fact it finished 16.5 seconds ahead. This is a close result and the difference can be explained by other factors, like varying advantage during different stints, which is visible in the race development plot shown in this article.

At Fuji, the difference between the median lap times was 0.429 seconds. Multiplied by the 187 laps it took the #7 Toyota to lap the #50 Ferrari we get 80 seconds. Very close to the actual gap between the two cars shown the lap before – 91.689 seconds. This shows that the lap time differences shown on Figure 1 are close to the real pace advantage. This also means that there is more to Ferraris poor showing in Japan than just the unusually low number of CS periods, and that indeed they have slipped further behind Toyota. From Figure 1 it appears that this is a trend that persists for the last 3, maybe 4 races.

There is a limited scope for development of the cars during the season as they are frozen after their homologation. One obvious source of variation in the performance are changes in the Balance of Performance (BoP). The adjustments to BoP made before Fuji would not, however, suggest such divergence in performance. Both teams saw an increase in their allowed power by 1.4% and 1.6% for the Toyota and Ferrari, respectively. The minimum weight of the 499P was increased by 0.7% but it is still below that of the Toyota. Those combine to a power-to-weight ratios that differ by 0.005 kW/kg between the two cars and were actually closer together, albeit by a tiny margin, at Fuji then they were at Monza.

The consistency of lap times delivered by the drivers can be assessed by looking at their distributions. This is shown on Figure 2 for the highest finishing Ferrari and Toyota at every event in 2023 so far. The separate boxes are brought to a median of 0 so that only the scatter is shown. Before making the plot all non-green flag laps, all pit-in and pit-out laps, as well as slower than usual laps due to rain were removed. The vertical extend of every box shows the borders of the middle 50% of all laps (q1 to q3). The vertical axis is in seconds, accordingly the panel for Le Mans has a different range to account for the longer lap.

Indeed the Toyota drivers regularly deliver tighter distribution of lap times than those of Ferrari. Of all races this year only at Sebring and Spa the lap time distributions of the two teams have similar widths. Particularly startling is the difference at Le Mans and, indeed, at Fuji. This is not necessarily (only) due to driver performance but could also be a characteristic of the car that is enhanced by different track layouts, conditions and tires.

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