First time back to Le Mans ends with win for Ferrari

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Alessandro Pier Guidi (at the wheel), James Calado (left) and Antonio Giovinazzi (right) celebrating victory driving to the podium.

Ferrari won the Centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the 499P driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, who shared the # 51 car with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, covering 342 laps of the French track. The Maranello manufacturer claimed an historic result on its return to the top class after half a century, with the Ferrari – AF Corse team triumphing in the world’s most famous endurance race.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023

The Ferrari 499Ps started from the top two positions on the grid with Hypercar numbers 50 and 51, respectively, thanks to the times posted during the Hyperpole when Fuoco took pole.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. End of lap 1.

Toyota #8 took over the lead in lap 1 for the first hour. The next two hour saw both Ferrari, Cadillac #2, Porsche #5 and Toyota #8 taking the lead until safety car was called due to heavy rain at the Porsche Curves causing several incidents like the #709 Glickenhaus crashing and the #3 Cadillac suffering a double spin later on.

During the 1 hour 25’ safety car period, Peugeot #94 took the lead. When the cars where released, Hertz team JOTA Porsche #38, both Ferrari and Porsche #75 took the lead until Pier Guidi with Ferrari #51 emerged as leader for 28 laps before midnight until he got his car beached in the gravel at the first Mulsanne chicane while trying to avoid another car. Luckily, the marshals were fast allowing Pier Guidi to get back on track and stay on the lead lap.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Ferrari #51 Sunday morning.

During Sunday morning, the battle was intent between the Ferrari #51 and the Toyota #8 with gap between the two leaders as little as 1.4 seconds after Pier Guidi couldn’t restart his #51 Ferrari, forcing him to perform a full power cycle before rejoining, costing the leading Ferrari around a minute.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Ferrari #51 last pit stop before victory.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. A huge moment of solitude for each member of the AF Corse Ferrari team and the press around: Ferrari #51 does not restart after the last refueling 23' before the end of the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. The man in yellow (left) has his « lollipop » up since long seconds… The #51 finally started!

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Antonio Giovinazzi Full of emotions winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023.

This was Ferrari’s tenth overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, to go with those collected in 1949, 1954, 1958, and 1960-1965. Ferrari’s history at Le Mans now comprises 39 victories, including 29 class wins.

With this result in round four of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship, Ferrari remains second in the Manufacturers’ standings, narrowing the gap to Toyota to 19 points.

ANTONIO GIOVINAZZI: “For me and Alessandro (Pier Guidi) it’s an even more special feeling. We first drove this car last July, so to have achieved this result, pole and victory, after just under a year, is undoubtedly fantastic. It was by no means a given that we’d make it, but the entire team and my teammates did a great job, and here we are today. Thanks to Ferrari, who made all this happen. We are back to winning ways after 50 years, and we should be very proud.”

ALESSANDRO PIER GUIDI: “It takes time to grasp what we did. Probably now, we are part of the history of Ferrari, the biggest brand in the world. As an Italian, I have dreamed of driving for this brand since childhood. Now it's real. We won Le Mans with a red car. It isn't easy to describe what you feel. It’s a mix of emotions. If you think about how much work there is behind this victory. We worked 24/7. We tried to give our best, but everyone worked non-stop, the engineers and the mechanics, for one year, and the work finally paid off. We knew from the start that reliability would be a key factor. The car was new and the race crazy: the weather was mad, with many slow zones and safety cars. But in the end, Le Mans is always like this. You have to try to stay out of trouble or at least to minimise the mistakes. I think we did quite well”

JAMES CALADO: “It’s an amazing feeling to win this race. The team did an amazing job. The track was amazing, honestly. It feels so special to drive: the balance, the performance, the engine, the way it works were superb. It’s a big thanks to everyone involved in this project to make this happen. I think it shows what Ferrari is made of. Obviously, I’ve won here in GT twice, but this is a bit different. Definitely a different feeling: the attention involved, the Ferrari fans, you can see all the red in every corner. So, a big thanks to all the supporters. I’m very happy.” Source: Ferrari.

No six consecutive Le Mans wins for Toyota

Last year’s winners Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, in the #8 GR010 HYBRID crossed the line in second place, 1min 21.793secs behind the winning #51 Ferrari.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Toyota #8 ends second.

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8): “It was a tough race. At some point it was not easy just to stay on track due to the changing conditions early in the race. We didn’t have the ultimate pace to win but we gave it our best shot and we pushed them all the way. Ferrari were faster than us, so we had to push very hard to stay with them and that meant taking no margin. We tried everything to win so we have no regrets. Congratulations to Ferrari for their victory. They were very impressive from qualifying onwards. Now we will look towards the World Championship and work hard to come back stronger in the next races.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8): “I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now. We gave it our all and we had nothing left. We didn’t have the outright performance, but we were still there, putting pressure on Ferrari all the way through. For a moment it was getting exciting at the end when the conditions came back to us a bit and we started to close the gap. Ryo was in the most difficult situation. He was told to do go full risk and try to close the gap so there’s no blame. Right now, it feels like we came so close but were so far away. Big congratulations to Ferrari. They were quicker, and they didn’t make mistakes, so well done to them.”

Ryo Hirakawa (Driver, car #8): “First of all thanks to Sébastien and Brendon for their hard work and big effort. Thank you also for the team who did a fantastic job all week, and to all our supporters for their encouragement. It was very hard to challenge Ferrari but we never gave up hope and we tried everything to win Le Mans again. We need to analyse this race and find areas to improve. Personally, I will learn from my mistake and come back stronger. There are three races remaining in the season so we will focus on the World Championship, that’s all we can do right now.” Source: Toyota

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. Toyota #8 in les Hunaudières ahead of ferrari #50.

Cadillac earns podium in return to Le Mans.

The #2 Cadillac V-Series.R, co-driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook, boosted by reliability, the ability to run a relatively clean race and consistent pit stops earned third place in the iconic endurance race.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. #2 Cadillac V-Series.R.

Earl Bamber: “We showed our strength at Daytona with all the cars finishing and third and fourth place. Coming here, we never really know what to expect. A proud milestone for the whole project and for Cadillac Racing to lead some laps at Le Mans. That’s a cool box to tick. Then we found ourselves in a sort of solid third position. We all learned a lot as a group and the car is very reliable. I think we can take away a couple of good lessons to tune it up and come back and achieve our ultimate goal.”

Richard Westbrook: “I’ve finished third five times now. It’s not a record I’m proud of. But this one honestly I’m proud. We were the best of the rest. In those conditions where it was so bad at certain times of the night, and we saw so many cars go out. On merit I think we deserved third. We were fast in certain conditions but came up a little short. Still, the gap to the leader wasn’t huge. It gives us plenty to work on and come back next year that much stronger.”

Alex Lynn: “We knew coming in that we had to run our race. We had to run clean because we knew Ferrari and Toyota would be super fast and we had to be the car that doesn’t make a mistake and is always there. That is the theme of our season. We always dig in and grind out a result. That’s why I’m so proud of this team and this Cadillac racecar. It never misses a beat, and now we can say on the biggest stage it didn’t even in the first year of the program. It’s only going to get better.” Source: Cadillac Racing

The #3 Cadillac V-Series.R finished fourth after an adventurous race with Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon switching off in the seat. Before a fireworks and choreographed drone show lit the night sky Saturday, the No. 3 Cadillac V-Series.R had to pit once to change the rear-wing assembly after being clipped by another car and once to change the front assembly after spin on a drenched racetrack – plus sitting for an untimely one-minute hold penalty for a technical infraction.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. #3 Cadillac V-Series.R

Renger van der Zande: “We’ve come a long way in developing this car with everyone involved. I’m just proud of the third and fourth place and it’s something that is a testament to the reliability of the car. I did my last few laps and I just followed Richard (Westbrook) for a long time and it was awesome. I’m happy with all the effort by everyone.”

Sebastien Bourdais: “Super solid effort by the whole team. Big thanks to GM, Cadillac and everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing. There was a lot of adversity leading up to and throughout the race. I think we can all be proud of the effort we put out on the track, it was very competitive, we just ran out of luck at a couple of points during the race. Ultimately, third and fourth for the team. I'm really happy for everyone involved. I think we would have probably signed up for this result if anybody had told us we'd be fighting for those positions at the end out of 16 cars. We're going to learn a lot, fix everything that didn't work, improve everything that did and come back stronger."

Scott Dixon: "Honestly, it was a lot of fun. Definitely demanding conditions and a tough race as you expect here at Le Mans. Competition was fierce and I'm a little bummed for the 3 car. We had two incidents where we got hit and then we got a penalty. I think without those we would have been fighting for at least a podium spot. Great to see that the 2 car got a podium spot and proud of how hard everyone at Chip Ganassi Racing, Cadillac and GM have worked. It's pretty special for Cadillac to come back and achieve what they have for being away for so long." Source: Cadillac Racing.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans. #3 and #311 Cadillac V-Series.R

Ferrari #50 ends fifth

At the chequered flag Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen finished fifth in the 499P number 50, delayed during the night by repairs that knocked the crew out of contention for the podium, despite an excellent performance that saw them climb several places back up the standings.