WEC: Ferrari beats Toyota to secure historic Le Mans victory

Having been involved a race-long close battle with Toyota, Ferrari came out on top to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Italian marque claiming victory in the world’s most famous endurance race for the first time since 1965. F1Technical's Balázs Szabó reports on the 2023 edition of the historic 24 hours of Le Mans.

Ferrari returned to the top class of endurance racing this year, joining the newly created Hypercar category of the FIA World Endurance Championship with the brand-new Ferrari 499P. The Italian manufacturer lined up with two cars on the grid in the previous three rounds of the 2023 WEC season with the #50 Ferrari driven by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen and the #51 Ferrari driven by James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi.

Fuoco banked the fastest lap in the half-hour shoot-out to steal the pole position for the centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, technical problems hit #50 Ferrari which saw Fuoco, Nielsen and Molina lose multiple laps overnight due to an energy recovery system fluid leak.

In the opening part of the race, rain showers had made part of the track slippery, upsetting the strategy of many teams, but forecasts for Sunday promised nice weather with dry and sunny weather welcoming the teams on the second day of the race.

After the problems for the pole-sitting Ferrari, the race turned into a battle between its sister car and the #8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa.

Pier Guidi suffered an off at the first Mulsanne chicane in the evening hours, but the #51 Ferrari managed to come back and build up an advantage of just under a minute in front of the #8 Toyota. The Italian appeared to be clearly the fastest in the evening and in the early morning hours with Toyota unable to react to Ferrari’s speed.

However, the 24 Hours of Le Mans showed why it is referred to as the most challenging motorsport event when Pier Guidi had to perform a power cycle at a pitstop in the 19th hour. Ferrari lost around 50 seconds with the delay and rejoined the track 5 seconds adrift of the leading Toyota.

However, Pier Guidi made a bold move to overtake Buemi and retake the lead with five hours to go. While Ferrari could build up an advantage of around twelve seconds after that, Toyota managed to pick up the pace in the hands of Hartley with the warmer track surface having appeared to favour the Japanese manufacturer’s GR010 Hybrid.

With Toyota not giving up their chances of another Le Mans victory, Hirakawa was driving flat out when he took over the car from Hartley. However, the young Japanese driver lost it under braking at Arnage, and hit the barriers. Although he was able to get the damaged car to the pits, the #8 Toyota lost almost two minutes with the incident and the repair job.

Following this incident, Ferrari had their hands on the trophy, but they endured another scare in the dying minutes of the legendary endurance race as Pier Guidi had to perform another power cycle with 23 minutes to go.

Making no mistakes in the final phase of the 2023 edition of the historic Le Mans race, Calado, Pier Guidi and Giovinazzi delivered Ferrari its first outright Le Mans win since Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt took top honours in 1965 with the victory becoming the Italians’ tenth overall victory of the historic 24 hours of Le Mans.

Today’s race marked Ferrari’s return to endurance racing after having withdrawn from Le Mans to focus on Formula One in 1973.

Behind the Toyota of Hartley, Hirakawa and Buemi finished the #2 Cadillac driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook with the #3 Chip Ganassi Racing-run car of Sebastien Bourda, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon. The #50 Ferrari of Fuoco, Molina and Nielsen finished the race in P5.

The No. 34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca scored the LM P2 Class win with Jakub Smiechowski, Albert Costa, and Fabio Scherer driving the car and helping the outfit to become the first polish team to win a Le Mans 24 category.

Finishing 21 seconds behind in second in LM P2 was Team WRT, with drivers Rui Andrade, Louis Deletraz, and Robert Kubica. The Duqueine Team with drivers Neel Jani, Rene Binder, and Nicolas Pino finished on the podium, just 45 seconds behind the winning team.

In the LM GTE Class, the No. 33 Corvette Racing team earned the victory with Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating, and Nicolas Varrone behind the wheel. The No. 25 Aston Martin finished second, driven by Ahmad Al Harthy, Michael Dinan, and Charlie Eastwood. The podium was completed by the No. 86 Porsche 911 with Michael Wainwright, Benjamin Barker, and Riccardo Pera.