24h Le Mans
The showdown between manufacturers I In 2023, they came back, they saw, and they conquered! The Prancing Horse didn’t need a trial run to clinch 24 Hours of Le Mans victory on its return to the pinnacle of endurance racing. The Ferrari 499P has a three-car line-up this year, and aims to repeat the feat.
Ferrari can now count ten overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans after its triumph in 2023, the event’s centenary year. The Italian marque is naturally a favourite at this 92nd staging of the iconic race, despite a sluggish start to the season. Team manager Batti Pregliasco admits: “The start of the season has been complicated, with a difficult first round in Qatar, where the track and its many corners was not the best for our car. It’s more of a motorcycle circuit with few opportunities for overtaking. At the next two rounds, we deserved much better: at Imola we made a mistake and at Spa, you saw what happened [a long red-flag suspension thwarted Ferrari’s otherwise perfect strategy]. We still managed to demonstrate the car’s potential, with the pole positions and our on-track performances. We should be up to speed here.”
The Ferrari 499P prototype certainly hasn’t lost any of its speed. “But to say that the car was the fastest in 2023 isn’t quite right: I think that the Toyota was just as fast as us here. […] With our strategy, we found ourselves in a more favourable position, but when you compare times, the Toyota was still very fast. We were favourites, we were good, we won Hyperpole and drove a great race, with no mistakes,” Pregliasco continues. An error-free performance that they will need to repeat;”It’s a tough title to defend. It’s complicated because there are all the other competitors entering the fray this year [Lamborghini, Alpine, BMW and Isotta Fraschini] and their potential is still unknown. Last year, the Porsches and Cadillacs didn’t quite have the pace. This year, they have shown that they are very fast. We’ll also have to reckon with Peugeot and Toyota… We’ll be watching each other’s reliability, because we’ll need to be well placed with six hours to go, to make a run for the win. We need to pay particular attention to tyre choices and strategy,” he adds. “The aim is to win: we’re Ferrari after all! Everything we’ve achieved so far is to ensure we perform well and we win! But, as we’ve seen, mistakes can easily happen, and you can suddenly miss out on a victory that you thought was in the bag. We need to concentrate and prepare for the race as best we can. You can’t make up a lap, so you really have to stay focused and avoid making the slightest mistake.”
The opposition has now stepped up its game but the Italian marque is fielding a third car entrusted to a brand new crew headed by former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica, alongside two young drivers with big ambitions: Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman. The former defected from Porsche (Hertz Team Jota #38 Porsche 963, which finished P40 in 2023 after the Chinese driver headed off the track) and the latter is a graduate from the Ferrari Driver Academy. For the first time, the Polish driver, along with his new teammates, is in a position to chase overall victory. “I’m going to try to reproduce my past achievements [in LMP2] and improve on a few points. […] We have to focus on the job and see what the 24 Hours has in store for us this time.”
Both the Hypercar 499P and the five Ferrari 296s in the LMGT3 class are driven by a twin-turbocharged V8 engine that originates from the production Ferrari 296. It’s a 2.9-litre engine which, like all the other engines, has its power limited by the regulations.
No fewer than five Ferrari 296s will be flying the flag for the prestigious Italian manufacturer in the LMGT3 class. There are 23 Grand Touring cars competing in all, but Ferrari boasts the largest line-up in the class. They will be up against two Porsches, two BMWs and two Aston Martins, all ahead of Ferrari in the championship.
The showdown between manufacturers starts here. The verdict will be delivered on track, with the race to start at 16:00 on Saturday 15 June. This battle will also be the theme of the 24 Hours of Le Mans Show, which spectators at this year’s race will be able to enjoy at 23:30 on Saturday night. Electro duo Synapson will provide the musical backdrop to the dazzling display that combines drones, light, video and pyrotechnics.
