Le Mans Post-Race Notebook

***Sunday’s victory for Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson was Ferrari’s 12th overall triumph in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, bringing the Prancing Horse to within a single win of pulling level with Audi for second place on the list of most successful manufacturers at the French endurance classic.

***Ferrari joins Audi and Porsche as three-time Le Mans winners in the FIA World Endurance Championship era, a feat all three brands notably achieved with a streak of three consecutive victories: Audi went undefeated from 2012 to 2014 while Porsche collected wins from 2015 to 2017.

***Toyota, meanwhile, holds five consecutive wins from 2018-2022.

***The yellow-liveried No. 83 Ferrari notably also became the first car in WEC history to win a race overall from outside the top ten, having started 13th.

***Kubica, Ye and Hanson all secured their first overall victories at Le Mans, repeating a feat that both previous Ferrari crews achieved when they won in 2023 and 2024, respectively. While Hanson is the 37th British driver to win Le Mans outright, Ye and Kubica both secured the first overall wins for their respective nations (China and Poland).

***Ye addressed the post-race press conference in French as well as English, demonstrating the language skills he picked up when he moved to Le Mans as a 14-year-old to further his racing career. “I came here to become a professional racing driver, and my dream was to one day maybe to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I lived in an apartment close to the Esses, and from my window, I could see the Tertre Rouge restaurant! I didn’t imagine that 11 years after arriving in France that I would be able to win this race with Ferrari.”

***JOTA Sport co-owner Sam Hignett paid tribute to overall winners Ye and Hanson, both of whom drove for the British team in customer Porsche machinery before moving on to the No. 83 AF Corse crew in 2024 and the start of this year respectively.

***Hignett joked: “We educated two of the drivers that won the race, giving them their first taste of Hypercar! It’s super-cool to see that. They are part of our family. I’ve texted their parents already!”

***Kubica’s victory formed part of a landmark day for Polish motorsport, as Inter Europol Competition and Kuba Smiechowski both captured their second class wins in the LMP2 category.

***Yelloly, who drove the No. 43 Oreca 07 Gibson to victory as part of a dramatic conclusion to the race that saw Inter Europol defeat VDS Panis Racing, can add a class win at Le Mans to a glittering resume that already included overall victories in both the Nürburgring 24 and CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.

***Tom Dillmann, the third driver in the LMP2-winning lineup, achieved a unique milestone of his own as he now holds the record for the longest gap between any two WEC race wins. The Frenchman won the LMP2 class in the 6 Hours of Shanghai with Signatech Alpine in 2015 and then went 3,514 days without another victory. Previously, this record was held by Luis Perez Companc at 3,283 days.

***The No. 83 crew moved into second place in the Hypercar drivers’ standings as a result of their victory, 16 points behind Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi. Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor, meanwhile, are fourth with Matt Campbell fifth after the Australian missed the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

***Ferrari further strengthened its already solid grip on the lead in the manufacturers’ standings with its strong Le Mans showing. The Italian manufacturer is now 111 points clear of nearest challengers Toyota. Porsche, which notably scored the same amount of points as Ferrari at 66, moves into third with 80 points. BMW, which entered the weekend third, dropped to fifth behind Cadillac as neither of its two Hypercar entries scored any points due to late-race issues.

***Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo praised the No. 6 Porsche crew for a “great” race on its way to second place, ahead of both of the Italian manufacturer’s engine problem-ailed works cars.

***Cannizzo said: “They did everything perfect – very good strategy, the drivers drove very well, no mistakes, execution was great for them. They were chasing us stint after stint, especially in the second half of the race.”

***The two other Porsches, meanwhile, finished the race in seventh and ninth, respectively, meaning all three works 963 finished in the top ten for the first time at Le Mans. The No. 5 car led early on, but dropped back with a puncture and overnight penalties.

***On the other hand, Cannizzo expressed surprise at Toyota’s relative lack of performance after a race in which the Japanese manufacturer didn’t show the potential to finish higher than fifth, finally ending up sixth with its best car. He said: “The Toyota remains the car with the biggest potential. It surprises me that they did not have such a good Le Mans. Clearly they made mistakes, but there is something else that is going wrong for them.”

***Ferrari largely stuck to a strategy of triple-stinting the Michelin Medium tire. Cannizzo explained: “On our car the Mediums were really consistent, especially in the conditions we had at the start of the race: temperature not that high, cloudy,” he explained. The track temperature was not high, only a few degrees more than ambient. This was not the same at the end of the race.”

***Cannizzo added that the No. 50 Ferrari did experiment with a triple stint on softs, but that the pace was similar on both compounds. “The fact the drivers felt less confidence with this compound so we went back to the Medium,” he said.

***Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick captured the lead in the LMGT3 drivers’ standings as a result of their second win of the season. The No. 92 Manthey crew now has 81 points, five more than the No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3. Ben Keating, Jonny Edgar and Daniel Juncadella drop from first to third on 60 points.

***Juncadella said he was relieved to salvage points for sixth in LMGT3, finishing seventh, after losing two laps during an eight-minute pit stop, the result of a security clip getting stuck and not allowing the rear-left wheel to be removed.

***Juncadella told Sportscar365: “It’s just one of those things you cannot control. I didn’t think we would get any points, but it was a great race after that. We benefited from others’ mistakes and the execution was perfect. To come away with 16 points is a big bonus.”

***LMP2 Pro-Am class winner Louis Deletraz, who shared the No. 199 AO Racing Oreca with PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron, followed in the footsteps of his father Jean-Denis with his first triumph at Le Mans. The Swiss racer previously came agonisingly close to an LMP2 win when his car stopped on the final lap in 2021, which at the time he notably shared with newly crowned overall winners Kubica and Ye.

***Deletraz said: “First of all, I’m still one behind my father so I will have to to come back. It’s amazing, we’ve been trying so hard to win Le Mans the last two years. I came so close [and] 2021 still hurts. Obviously on that side I’m very happy for Robert and Yifei, because it feels a bit special that we all won on the same day.”

***Ferdinand Habsburg struggled to conceal his disappointment after finishing a distant 10th in the Alpine A424 he shared with Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi, two laps down on the winning Ferrari.

***Habsburg told Sportscar365: “We knew our goal was just to finish the race, and even though it was a great success compared to last year, it feels like a failure. It feels like there is still a big step to the likes of Porsche, Ferrari, Cadillac, Toyota. They kicked our ass. The team never gave up, the spirit was good, but we need to make a big step.”

***CLX Motorsport finished as last of the finishers in LMP2, nine laps down, after contact while Alex Malykhin was in the car caused suspension damage that required a 27-minute trip to the garage as early as the fifth hour of the race.

***Jean-Eric Vergne praised his Peugeot mechanics for completing a rapid steering rack change on the No. 93 9X8 after the Frenchman encountered an overnight issue. “I could not turn left anymore,” Vergne told Sportscar365. “I mean, I could turn, but the car would not. The team, especially the mechanics, did an amazing job. They changed the whole aero package of the car in less than 30 seconds. Steering rack in less than 5 minutes. They have been really impressive.”

***Vergne went to describe Peugeot’s overall performance in the race, in which its two cars finished 12th and 17th, as a “tough pill to swallow,” saying: “We take it on the chin. It’s tough, it’s very tough, it’s horrible. I believe it’s what’s going to make us stronger in the future.”

***AWA secured a top-ten finish in the LMGT3 class upon debut with its No. 13 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R driven by Orey Fidani, Lars Kern and Matt Bell. The Canadian squad made the trip to the Circuit de La Sarthe after winning the Bob Akin Award in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship last year.

***Fidani told Sportscar365: “I never expected to be here to begin with, ever in my life. So I couldn’t be happier to just take part in this whole event with my awesome team from back home and all my family here to watch. I’m just super happy to be able to compete in this race and complete it. We’re going to push hard to win the Bob Akin Award again back home, which we’re leading this year. We’ll be back here for next year. We’ve learned a lot and we can apply that to next year and hopefully move up the ladder.”

***The ACO announced a record-breaking crowd of 332,000 spectators for the event, up from the 329,000 that was reported last year and the 325,000 that were on hand for the centenary edition in 2023.

***Longtime Le Mans media center manager and WEC communication manager Catherine Vatteoni, in her 41st and final time working at Le Mans, won this year’s ACO-UJSF communication award. Vatteoni will be retiring from the ACO/LMEM in January. The award, given annually since 1994, was voted upon by a dozen motorsport journalists, including Sportscar365 editor-in-chief John Dagys.

***With the European leg of the calendar completed, WEC teams will now switch focus to the flyaway rounds starting with the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo on July 13.

Jamie Klein & John Dagys contributed to this report