How Ferrari scored a historic victory at Le Mans

Could there have been a better result at the end of the centenary running of the Le Mans 24 Hours? Not one that would have made the headlines in quite the same way all over the world. Ferrari did the business at the first time of asking at the French enduro with its new 499P Le Mans Hypercar after a factory absence from the prototype ranks spanning 50 years. Better still, Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi prevailed at the end of a sometimes thrilling battle with the best of the Toyotas.

The #51 Ferrari beat the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH driven by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa by a shade over 80 seconds at the end of an incident-packed race of attrition affected by two rain storms, three safety cars of the real kind and five of the virtual variety known as Full Course Yellows. The Italian manufacturer looked well set on Sunday morning to take a first overall Le Mans victory since 1965. But Le Mans, as ever, provided some late jeopardy. 

Toyota, bidding for a sixth Le Mans victory in a row, came back into the picture late in hour 18. The GR010 was trailing the 499P by a minute and appeared to lack the pace to do anything about that deficit, but suddenly the race came alive. The Toyota started to become a more competitive proposition as the temperatures rose and an electronic glitch cost the Ferrari a minute in the pits. 

Buemi found himself with a lead of a couple of seconds. He was behind in the space of four laps, Pier Guidi sweeping around the outside into the second chicane on the Mulsanne, but the balance between the two cars was shifting ever so slightly. Hartley was asked to extend his stint behind the wheel from a triple to quadruple with two and a half hours to go and was given a new set of Michelin’s medium-compound slick. Inroads started to be made into Calado’s advantage. 

Fifteen or so seconds quickly became nine as he chased the down the Italian car. Neither car took tyres at its next stop when Hirakawa replaced Hartley. The young Japanese was told it was time for what his Kiwi team-mate described as “maximum attack”. Three laps later, he locked up in the braking area for the tight Arnage right-hander, the #8 Toyota sustaining front and rear body damage as it fishtailed into the barriers. The two-minute stop for repairs on pitlane put him more than three minutes in arrears of the Ferrari. The battle for the race was over. 

There was one final turn to a race that had been led by all five of the manufacturers competing in the Hypercar class, but Toyota was not in a position to twist the knife. The electronic glitch that had delayed Pier Guidi earlier returned at the car’s final pitstop with just under 25 minutes left on the clock. This time, driver, Ferrari’s engineers and the AF team were on top of the problem faster. Only 30s were lost as Pier Guidi went through the power-cycle necessary to reboot the car’s systems. The question was would the Toyota have been able to take advantage had Hirakawa not gone off? The answer to that one can never be known.

“We knew that the track conditions were coming to us, according to our data,” said Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon. “We will never know, but for sure, our competitiveness was improving.”

The chasing Toyota pits for repairs after Hirakawa's off gives Ferrari breathing space on its charge to Le Mans victory

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Those extra seconds spent in the pits by Pier Guidi were the last in a series of heart-in-the-mouth moments for Ferrari as it belied its second-favourite status for round four of the WEC, even with the pre-race Balance of Performance change that had hit Toyota hardest. 

Calado put his head in his hands, but Ferrari’s sportscar racing technical boss Ferdinando Cannizzo insisted that the team wasn’t too worried. At least not this time. “There was a kind of loss of communication between the systems in the car, so we were forced to make a power cycle,” he explained. “The first time we were surprised at what happened, so we lost a bit more time. The second time we understood and had prepared the procedure. No one was too worried.”

Long before the first electronics reset, Pier Guidi had spun at the first chicane on the Mulsanne Straight in hour nine. The Ferrari beached itself in the gravel, but the speed with which he was extricated by marshals ensured he didn’t lose a lap. The safety car that followed meant that his misdemeanour had little or no bearing on the race. 

A problem for the sister car shared by Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina shortly afterwards in hour 10 could have had a much greater effect on Ferrari’s chances because it effectively halved its victory bid. The #50 499P had already lost time having to go through the reboot procedure when a stone pierced the hybrid cooling system. The team had no choice but to effect a replacement of the radiator. Thirty minutes were lost and the car dropped outside of the top 10, though the car’s pace and problems for others in Hypercar allowed it to take the chequered flag in fifth position. 

"In the races before Le Mans we suffered with tyre deg. Our car is definitely still hard on tyres, but this is a low-energy track. We were able to use the soft and the medium tyres without any big deg issues" James Calado

The delays for Fuoco levelled up the Ferrari versus Toyota battle. The Japanese manufacturer was already down to a single car after an incident indirectly linked to Pier Guidi’s off. A so-called Slow Zone where an 80km/h (50mph) speed limit and non-overtaking in virtual safety car conditions was still in force from Tertre Rouge to the first chicane on the straight. Kamui Kobayashi had to check up dramatically to avoid passing Giedo van der Garde’s Graff Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2 in what is known as the preparatory area.  He was clouted and clouted hard from behind by the JMW Motorsport Ferrari GTE Evo driven by Louis Prette and with less severity by Memo Rojas in one of the Signatech team’s ORECAs. Both rear tyres were punctured and the left rear driveshaft broken. Kobayashi had no chance of making it back to the pits. 

It was a worrying time for Toyota. The #8 car that had led its charge initially had fallen back with an overheating problem. Vasselon revealed after the race that the team thought it was going to lose two cars in quick succession. “We had the engine temperature going sky high on #8,” he explained. “We had no indication of what was happening; there was nothing visible from outside. 

“We decided to remove the front end, change it and have a look. There was a big piece of Kevlar. It was stuck inboard of the suspension, but blocking the flow of the cooler. We could remove it and keep going.”

None of the frontrunners had trouble-free running amid the chaotic opening 10 hours to the race

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

It wasn’t the last foreign body to cause #8 Toyota problems. Nose damage was caused in the night by impact with a rodent of not significant size when Hirakawa was at the wheel. The length of the tail found within the car indicated, said Vasselon, that it was (or had been) a squirrel.

The time lost by the Toyota switched positions around at the front after a purple patch for the #8 when the softest compound Michelin tyre gave it an edge over the Ferrari. That changed as the temperatures rose before some rum luck for Buemi during a Slow Zone and the final FCY (a procedure used in the race at Le Mans for the first time eight years on from its introduction into the WEC) handed the initiative to Ferrari. 

The Ferrari was the faster car around the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe during the race just as it had been in qualifying. The drivers of the winning 499P had the better part of half a second over their rivals in the chasing GR010, though there were times when the order was the other way around. Hartley’s best lap for the #8 Toyota was actually three tenths up on fastest time from the #51 Ferrari posted by Pier Guidi. Best race lap, however, went to Fuoco during the #50 car’s fightback. He was also the fastest driver on the averages, and by some margin. 

The Ferrari was a consistent performer at Le Mans in a way it hadn’t been in previous races since its debut in the WEC season-opener at Sebring in March. The Ferrari had been quick in qualifying but didn’t look after its tyres as well as the Toyota in the first three rounds. This time the 499P was again quick over one lap in the Thursday night’s Hyperpole session for the fastest eight cars in opening qualifying. It blocked out the front row, Fuoco taking the pole ahead of Pier Guidi by eight tenths, with Hartley 1.5s behind in third as best of the rest. But significantly it was able to continue that form over a stint, a double and even a triple through the 24 Hours.

It helped that the Circuit de la Sarthe is a low-degradation track. But on the other hand, a pre-event Balance of Performance change that gave Ferrari a 24kg increase in minimum weight couldn’t have helped tyre life, except in its battle with Toyota – the Japanese manufacturer had received an even bigger weight hit of 37kg. 

“In the races before Le Mans we suffered with tyre deg,” said Calado. “Our car is definitely still hard on tyres, but this is a low-energy track. We were able to use the soft and the medium tyres without any big deg issues.”

Vasselon made an attempt to quantify the gain those 13 fewer kilos gave Ferrari. He put what he called the “BoP effect” at 2m30s, once corrected to take into account of all the interminable yellow-flag running. A new safety car procedure was in use at Le Mans for the first time that extended a couple of already long caution periods. 

The #2 Cadillac didn't feature in the victory fight over the closing hours, but was never far from it

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The 100th anniversary Le Mans was a two-horse race, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that another manufacturer or even manufacturers could have been in the fight had things gone their way. Cadillac took third place, delivering on the promise shown by its V-Series.R LMDh in the opening three rounds of the WEC despite an 11kg BoP hit. 

The full-season WEC entry from the Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing entry of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook took the final podium spot a lap down on the winning Ferrari. It looked as though it had the cleanest run of the three Caddys on the grid, though an engine oil problem forced it to take on a dump of lubricant at every stop with a loss of vital seconds from as early as the third hour. By Sunday morning, Bamber and co admitted they weren’t pushing as hard as they might in light of the high oil consumption in the knowledge that they had nothing for Ferrari and Toyota.

“If you add all those three seconds here and five seconds there, it’s something like three minutes,” said Bamber. “We made a step for here, but it’s all those small details that we need to continue to work on. We showed some really good pace over the race, but they [Ferrari and Toyota] seemed to be able to do it will.”

Porsche had a fast car at Le Mans, something helped by BoP, but not a reliable one. None of the four 963 LMDhs in Hypercar had clean runs, two of them that saw the chequered flag were last-lap specials sent out in order to guarantee a classified finish

Ganassi’s regular IMSA SportsCar Championship entry shared by Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon was the faster of the two cars, particularly in the hands of Bourdais. But it suffered the lion’s share of the team’s problems, high oil-consumption apart. Three incidents, including a punt from behind under the safety car, ultimately limited the second Ganassi entry to fourth, a further lap behind the sister car. There was also a one-minute stop/go penalty for not respecting the limitations on tyre pressures.

The Action Express Racing squad was never in contention with its V-Series.R, but it might have been. Jack Aitken crashed on the opening lap of race, the resulting damage costing 78 minutes to repairs. That dropped the car 16 laps off the race lead, and it only finished a further two laps down, one of which was accounted for by another off from Aitken. 

The first-lap accident came at the wettest point of what was a mostly bone dry track at the time, Aitken conferring that he lost grip on a white line (a road marking on what was once part of the main route from Le Mans to Tours).

Porsche had a fast car at Le Mans, something helped by only a three kilo increase in minimum weight under the BoP, but not a reliable one. None of the four 963 LMDhs in Hypercar had clean runs, two of them that saw the chequered flag were last-lap specials sent out in order to guarantee a classified finish. 

Unreliability dampened Porsche's return to the top class at Le Mans

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry crewed by Frederic Makowiecki, Dane Cameron and Michael Christensen had only one driven wheel after a late driveshaft failure, having already lost time with a sensor issue, a puncture and a cooling leak. The Jota customer car, shared by Antonio Felix da Costa, Yifei Ye and Will Stevens, spent more than three hours in its garage in the run-up to the finish. The steering rack had been damaged when da Costa was involved in an incident and the team wanted to ensure they got to 70% distance even after earlier stops for crash repairs and a change of FIA sensor.

The #6 car of Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre was running cleanly in 16th position overall. It had, however, lost 40 minutes to repairs after Estre went off in the Porsche Curves lapping an LMP2 and a similar loss came with hybrid issue gremlins culminating in a change of battery. The extra PPM car driven by Nick Tandy, Felipe Nasr and Mathieu Jaminet retired in hour seven when the fuel pressure suddenly disappeared. 

That makes it sound like it was a disastrous weekend for Porsche, but the 963 continued to show the pace in the WEC first indicated by its performance in the Le Mans Test Day the weekend before the race. The #5 was right up there in the averages, while Vanthoor, Makowiecki and Christensen were the star performers across the works squad.

They were all outshone, however, by Ye in the Jota entry. The Chinese driver flew as the race came out of one of the three safety cars on a damp track in hour four. He took the lead and pulled away from Molina in the #50 Ferrari, building up a 15s lead before dropping it in the Porsche Curves.

There were mitigating circumstances, however. The Chinese driver was on his in-lap and had was struggling with visibility after coming through a wet period of the race. A late turn-in at the right hander before Karting/Corvette resulted in a wheel off the drying line and a trip into the barriers.

“Visibility when the screen gets a bit dirty is a problem with this car at the moment,” said Jota boss Sam Hignett. “It was driver error, but we’re not giving Yifei too much stick, not least because he was flying.”

Urs Kuratle, 963 programme boss at Porsche, admitted that it wasn’t a good weekend for Porsche. “We can’t pretend that,” he said, “but on the other hand we are getting good feedback from all the drivers that we’ve made a real improvement with the car. That validates all the work we’ve done over the past month or so with testing in Europe and America. We showed some good pace and I don’t think Ferrari and Toyota were so far out of reach.”

Glickenhaus put in a strong showing to beat all Porsches and Peugeots

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Glickenhaus outlasts some big players

When Jim Glickenhaus pitched up in the World Endurance Championship exactly two years ago, he outlined a dream of vanquishing Ferrari on its return to the front of the grid at the Le Mans 24 Hours. It didn’t come true last weekend, but he did get his two Pipo-engined 007 Le Mans Hypercars home ahead of all four Porsches on the grid. That was still some achievement for a garagiste who has been so important in the Hypercar story.

The Glickenhaus Racing team added a sixth-place finish - and a seventh, too - to the fourth the 007 achieved on its Le Mans debut in 2021 and the third it notched up 12 months ago. It couldn’t really have hoped for more going into the 100th anniversary Le Mans, though perhaps a place or two higher might have been possible for its lead #708 car shared by Romain Dumas, Olivier Pla and Ryan Briscoe. 

Glickenhaus wasn’t on the pace in practice and qualifying, just as it hadn’t been in the opening WEC rounds this year. Its two cars lined up on the grid in 12th and 14th. Reliability rather than pace would have to be the key a decent result. 

"For a small niche manufacturer like Glickenhaus being in among all these big-name car makers is like a dream" Luca Ciancetti

“We are absolutely happy, no complaints,” said Luca Ciancetti, boss of the Podium Advanced Technologies organisation that developed and runs the 007. “For a small niche manufacturer like Glickenhaus being in among all these big-name car makers is like a dream.”

The two Glickenhaus LMH machines might have finished in the top six: both were running in sixth when each spun into the barriers on Sunday morning, Pla first and Franck Mailleux next. Both cars dropped down as a result of time lost to repairs, but the late problem for the #5 Porsche allowed #708 to return to the top six in the final hour. It was seven laps down, #709 in which Mailleux was joined by Esteban Gutierrez and Nathanael Berthon was a further two laps in arrears. 

The team didn’t seem too annoyed about its driver’s misdemeanours, pointing out that it had made mistakes of its own. The #708 car started from the pitlane — and a lap down as per the WEC regulations — after a gearbox leak was discovered. It was the result of finger trouble after pre-race set-up change of the differential settings. Ditto the loss of a front wheel on #709, which also lost time when Gutierrez had an off in the rain. 

The ByKolles team, now competing as Vanwall Racing, made little impact on its return to Le Mans for the first time since 2020. The Gibson-engined Vandervell 680 wasn’t a match for the Glickenhaus in the battle of the garagistes. The car driven by Tom Dillmann, Esteban Guerrieri and Tristan Vautier was already 37 laps in arrears it retired with engine failure in hour 16.

Can Ferrari retain its winning momentum when the WEC resumes for its home race at Monza next month?

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images