The Italian manufacturer’s return to the French endurance race for the first time in 50 years could not have gone better.
Not even late-race drama could stop Ferrari from claiming its first 24 Hours of Le Mans win since 1965.
With just 23 minutes of the race remaining, the leading #51 Ferrari 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado, refused to restart after completing a what would be its last pitstop.
The capacity crowd of 400,000 was shocked into silence as Pier Guidi repeatedly attempted to restart the #51 car but to no avail.
Eventually, after a minute of repeatedly trying to restart the car, and with the second-placed Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid eating into the near-one lap lead Ferrari had enjoyed, the #51 499P fired up and after a few nervous moments re-joined the track and cruised to its first win at La Sarthe in 58 years and its 10th victory overall.
The final winning margin over the second-placed Toyota was just 1m21s with the third-placed Cadillac hypercar finishing a further lap back.
Ferrari’s victory seemed unlikely heading into the weekend, with the team itself downplaying its chances despite locking out the front row in qualifying.
“We didn’t expect to survive for 24 hours,” said co-driving race winner Antonio Giovinazzi. “But the team did a fantastic job. After 50 years we are back winning Le Mans so we need to be really proud.”
Giovinazzi’s teammate James Calado echoed those sentiments.
“We were properly on the limit,” he said. “There was nothing to spare there. We were pushing as hard as we could. We were quite surprised we were there at the end.”
Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi admitted his Toyota didn’t have to pace match the Ferrari.
“They were faster than us from the beginning,” he said. “We couldn’t keep pace. We did everything we could.”
The 100th anniversary Le Mans 24 Hour marked a resurgence for top-flight endurance racing. Four manufacturers returned to the competition to take on Toyota which had been the race’s only tier-one entry for the last five years. Unsurprisingly, Toyota won all five races from 2018-2022.
But with Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche and Cadillac all returning to endurance racing, Toyota was always going to have a fight on its hands if it was going to win a sixth straight Le Mans. Adding to its tally will only get harder in 2024, with BMW, Lamborghini and Alpine all confirmed starters.
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