Ferrari Wins Third Le Mans In A Row, But This One’s Different

Easily the most important sports car race of the year took place over the weekend, and if you missed it you’ll be kicking yourself because it was a screaming fast dogfight for the entirety of the 24 hours, and the winners made all kinds of history. Ferrari grabbed its 12th overall victory at Le Mans this weekend and third in a row with the 499P Hypercar, preventing Porsche from getting its 20th in the process. The number 83 AF Corse-entered 499P driven by Robert Kubica, Ye Yifei, and Philip Hanson survived two trips around the clock to win by a narrow margin over the #6 Penske Porsche, followed closely by the two other factory-entered Ferraris. The yellow AF Corse car is the first privateer-entered Le Mans winner since Champion Audi’s 2005 victory, though both efforts were run at a factory-level operation. This also marks the first time in history that a Polish driver (Kubica) and a Chinese driver (Ye) have won the overall trophy at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The win at Le Mans with Ferrari is especially powerful for Kubica, as he had signed a contract to race for Ferrari in Formula 1 for the 2012 season, though a serious rallying crash in late 2011 prevented him from ever taking a start with the team. This win feels like redemption for the Pole. 

You may recall that Cadillac secured the top spot in qualifying last week, but unfortunately did not play a major part in the race proceedings. Both top Jota-entered factory Cadillacs suffered on top speed when compared to the Porsche and Ferrari entries, which lost them a lot of speed at race pace behind traffic. By the close of the first lap both Cadillacs had fallen out of the top spots, and the other two Cadillacs entered by Whelen Engineering and Wayne Taylor Racing suffered engine failures. 

In a race absolutely packed wall to wall with competitive cars and incredible drivers, the Ferrari squad looked strongest in the waning evening and early morning, with Porsche dominating the cool daytime condition running, drifting forward through the middle of the night. By the time the sun came up, it was clear that Ferrari was the stronger manufacturer with three cars remaining to Porsche’s lone lead-lap fighter. The 83 squad had three calm and reliable drivers who made merely minor mistakes compared to the larger faults of many other cars this year. While Ye Yifei has gained a reputation for being fast but mistake-prone, it seems he has managed to grow and mature into perhaps the quickest set of hands on the Le Mans grid. Kubica was tasked with running five full fuel stints to close out the race, and saved a single set of tires for the last stint, which helped him keep the charging Porsche at bay. 

With a few hours left in the race it seemed like the Ferrari teams would finish the race with a historic 1-2-3, but late running mistakes plagued the 50 and 51 factory entries. With four hours remaining the 51 car lost the lead with an ill-timed yellow flag period pit stop, and a spin into the gravel which cost the team nearly a minute. The number 50 car had a late-race issue of some sort, involving slow shifting, which forced them to slow their pace and concede 2nd position to the #6 Porsche, coming home about 14 seconds behind the Prancing Horse Pole. At various points throughout the race Toyota and BMW threatened to push to the front, but nearly simultaneous failures took both BMWs out of contention in the fading hours, while the faster of the two Toyotas suffered a flat tire and drove nearly the entire 7-mile course at a walking pace. 

You wouldn’t really know it from the race broadcast, as they spent the vast majority of the 24 hours on air talking about the Le Mans Hypercar class, but there were two other classes racing at Le Mans this weekend. After a late-race failure for the VDS Panis Racing car, the Inter Europol (a Polish team) Oreca Gibson of Tom Dillmann, Nick Yelloly, and Jakub Smiechowski (another Polish driver) took victory in LMP2. Meanwhile the reverse of the Hypercar finish happened in the LMGT3 category, as the 92 Manthey Porsche of Riccardo Pera, Ryan Hardwick, and Richard Lietz prevented the AF Corse Ferrari from taking the victory. By winning his class Richard Lietz netted his sixth GT-class win from 18 starts.