It’s more or less a cliché by now, but this year’s Le Mans race didn’t feel like an endurance race, but a mad dash to the line instead! From the get-go, there was a full-on battle between the Hypercars, LMP2s and LMGT3s. Cadillac locked out the front row during the Hyperpole, to many people’s surprise. But with 24 hours of racing and 21 entries in the top-tier Hypercar class, starting first doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed the win! The field seemed stronger than ever, and after racing around the clock, it proved to be one of the best and closest editions ever. The winning car, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, came across the line just 14 seconds ahead of the #6 Porsche 963! In LMP2 and LMGT3, the battle was equally tight, with late-stage penalties and technical issues reshuffling the leaderboard in the LMP2 class, and four different teams & cars finishing on the same lap in LMGT3!
The road to le mans
The build-up to Le Mans is always quite special, as the race is part of the World Endurance Championship, but really stands on its own compared to other events. It’s a full week of anticipation and preparation, as 62 teams took over the small French town of Le Mans, which hosts the legendary race. There are celebrations all around, including parade laps with classic Le Mans racing cars, presentation of the cars and drivers in the heart of the town and all sorts of other activities.
The one-off 2025 Porsche 963 RSP alongside the road-legal 1975 Porsche 917 built for Count Rossi.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie…
and McLaren Le Mans Hypercar programs.
But there was more this year, involving some of the most prolific names in racing, and more specifically, involving the Hypercar class! Next week, I will be diving into detail a bit more, but there was the amazing one-off and road-legal Porsche 963 RSP, inspired by the famous road-legal Porsche 917 made for Count Rossi making its debut, Aston Martin entered its road-to-race-car converted Valkyrie and announced a Valkyrie LM Hypercar client run of 10 cars, and McLaren announced they will be returning to Le Mans in 2027 with a Hypercar. All this made this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours race a touch more exciting, and we hadn’t even seen the French flag being waved at 4 PM on Saturday, to let loose thousands of horsepower for round-the-clock racing!
hypercars – The privateer Ferrari wins!
As mentioned, Cadillac made history by qualifying first and second in the Hyperpole qualifying, 75 years after it first raced at Le Mans! The V-Series R has always been quick, and margins were slim, but the Cadillac Hertz Team Jota trumped the others to a front row lock-out. There was pre-race drama too, as the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 was disqualified from the Hyperpole session, due to being underweight, and thus had to start 21st and last in class. However, pole position is far less relevant at Le Mans than at, let’s say, the Monaco Grand Prix. So as the flag dropped, the fight was on!
Immediately after the start, Porsche took the lead as Julien Andlauer in the #5 Team Penske Porsche overtook both Cadillacs before the first chicane on the Mulsanne Straight. Kévin Estre, starting in the #6 Porsche 963, was unleashed and determined to claw his way back to the front after being relegated to last place in qualifying. One hour in, he fought his way up to fifth already. Ferrari, BMW, Alpine and Toyota weren’t far behind, and it was close battles all around. Despite high expectations, the Peugeot and Aston Martin cars were unable to put up much of a fight, as the others proved too fast for them.
As the day moved into the evening, Ferrari worked its way to the front of the race, and by nightfall, they were in first, second and third. The only real threat came from Porsche, but the Italians led for most of the night. Drive-through penalties for both Ferrari AF Corse cars (the factory-driven team) saw the #6 Porsche swoop by to first place. By then, the #8 Toyota Gazoo GR010 Hybrid had joined the fray, and things were heating up. By early morning hours, the ‘privateer’ #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P retook the lead, with Ye Yifei, racing with Robert Kubica and Phil Hanson. The night also claimed its first Hypercar victim, as the #101 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac retired with an engine failure.
With the race reaching its climax, it seemed a given that Ferrari was going to take the win. The #51 Ferrari AF Corse car was in the lead, with the #50 close behind, and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari in third. Robert Kubica, pulling two 6-hour stints during the race, requested permission to attack the two factory-run Ferraris (politics, and whatnot) and seemed hell-bent to finally win at Le Mans. Traffic and other issues slowed down his progress, but while others were suffering mechanical issues, he inched his way forward. Drama struck the #50 and #51 cars as both encountered troubles that cost them valuable time, causing them to drop down the order. With two hours to go, the #83 Ferrari was in the lead with the #6 Porsche in second, charging hard.
But Kubica persevered, bringing his Ferrari 499P across the line just 14 seconds ahead of the Porsche, for the second-closest finish in the Hypercar era! And his win, along with Ye Yifei and Phil Hanson, of course, has a silver lining, really. Back when Robert Kubica was still racing in Formula 1, he had just signed a pre-contract with Ferrari when he had his horrific crash in a rally car in 2011, permanently damaging his right arm and hand. He made it back to F1, went rallying again and entered endurance racing in 2021. After two second place finished in LMP2, he joined Ferrari in the Hypercar class last year. Now, though, once again behind the wheel of the Ferrari 499P, he has achieved his sweet, sweet victory! And in the process, he’s granted Ferrari their third win in a row, something the Scuderia last achieved in the 1960s!
The #83 AF CORSE Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye & Philip Hanson crosses the finish line.
The podium was completed with the #6 Porsche 963 driven by Matt Campbell, Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor in second place, and the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P driven by James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi in third. A post-race disqualification for the #50 Ferrari AF Corse due to an infringement in the rear-wing construction promoted Cadillac to fourth, with Toyota rounding off the Top 5.
LMP2 & LMP2 Pro-AM – Victories for IEC & AO Racing
In the LMP2 class, racing is split between LMP2, fielding a fully professional grid of drivers, and LMP2 Pro-Am, which mixes things up with Bronze-rated (amateur) drivers. But Bronze drivers don’t mean slow drivers, as on more occasions than one, LMP2 Pro-Am teams have proven to be capable of fighting for the win! Racing is always very close, as the cars are all the same. For years, the class has relied on the Oreca 07 cars, powered by a Gibson V8 engine. The differences are minimal at best, as across the board, all teams have the same narrow windows of adjustments in the car’s set-up.
The #29 LMP2 Pro-Am team of TDS Racing, with drivers Mathias Beche, Clément Novalak and Rodrigo Sales, put their car in pole position, ahead of the #43 LMP2 Inter Europol Competition car, driven by Tom Dillman, Jakub Śmiechowski and Nick Yelloly. Along with the #199 LMP2 Pro-Am AO by TF car of Dane Cameron, Louis Delétraz and P.J. Hyett, these cars battled for the lead in the early stages of the race. As the pro drivers swapped seats with the team’s Bronze drivers in the #29 and #199, the order was reshuffled with the #28 LMP2 IDEC Sport car moving up the ranks to second, and the #16 LMP2 Pro-Am RLR MSport car in third place.
As these cars have been raced since 2017, they’re virtually bulletproof. As long as you can keep the car on the tarmac, you can run them hard for hours and hours on end. The only incident in the early stages of the race was a collision between an LMP2 and an LMGT3 car, for which the causing LMP2 car was reprimanded. The lead of the race was swapped out multiple times across multiple cars, with the pitstop strategy making things very close. Do you run the car as hard as you can, or save fuel and tire life to extend stints? And if you’re in the LMP2 Pro-Am sub-class, when do you enter your Bronze driver? With all this to consider, surviving Le Mans in LMP2 is an even tighter game of high-speed tactics than the Hypercar class is, perhaps.
As time progressed and the sun went down over Le Mans, it was the #43 LMP2 Iner Europol Competition car battling it out with the #48 VDS Panis Racing car for the lead. This continued all through the night, and the first LMP2 retirement occurred halfway through the 24-hour race, as the #24 LMP2 Pro-Am Nielsen Oreca car lost control and crashed at Tertre Rouge, the corner leading to the very long straight. In the early hours of Sunday morning, a second victim fell, as the #18 LMP2 IDEC Sport car lost a wheel on the high-speed Mulsanne Straight and was out. The fight was still close between the #28, #43, #48, and the then-leading #199 cars.
Similar to the Hypercar class, it came down to penalties and technical issues for the frontrunners in the last hours of the race. The #43 LMP2 Inter Europol Competition car was hit with a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding, while the #48 LMP2 VDS Panis car suffered a loss of power just 40 minutes before the finish. That meant the #43 could re-take the lead and claim victory in the LMP2 class. The team of Tim Dillmann, Jakub Śmiechowski and Nick Yelloly completed 367 laps, just 8 short of the lowest Hypercar finisher! Second place was for the #48 LMP2 VDS Panis Racing team of Oliver Gray, Esteban Masson and Franck Perrera, with the last podium spot going to the #199 LMP2 Pro-Am AO by TF car, piloted by Dane Cameron, Louis Delétraz and P.J. Hyett.
LMGt3 – Manthey 1st phorm on top
The LMGT3 class is a sure-fire, action-packed category with cars that look very close to what you and I can find on a dealership showroom floor. The field consists of multiple Porsche, Ferrari, Ford, Corvette, Aston Martin, Lexus, BMW, McLaren and Mercedes entries, with 24 teams in total this year. Each team has to run at least one Bronze-rated driver, but again, these are no slouches! Despite being the slowest class at Le Mans, as top speeds on the Mulsanne Straight can hit over 300kph, there’s an extra obstacle for the LMGT3 teams to overcome: traffic! Making sure not to get in the way of a Hypercar or LMP2 car is a real challenge and has led to race-ending collisions more than once!
The early stages saw the pole-sitting #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, piloted by Mattia Drudi, Ian James and Zacharie Robichon. Driver swaps mixed things up, up and down the field, as the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 car moved up to first, only to lose the lead to the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO shortly after. About a quarter into the race, it was a back-and-forth between the #46 BMW, the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296GT3, and the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 3. This continued far into the night, mixed in with several others. A power steering issue sidelined the #46 WRT BMW, with the team’s #31 sister car retiring after a collision with… a rabbit!
A crash of the #78 Lexus caused a full-course yellow around noon on Sunday, but up front, the racing remained very close. In the end, it was the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 R that claimed its second consecutive LMGT3 victory at Le Mans, with drivers Ryan Hardwick, Richard Lietz and Riccardo Pera. Second place was for the #21 Vista AF Crose Ferrari 296 GT3 of François Hériau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera, with the #81 TF Sport Chevrolette Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood and Tom van Rompuy coming in third. The #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo was the last car on the lead lap in class, ending up claiming fourth.
A night view of the race track, from the Porsche Curves leading up to Tertre Rouge.
This was again a thrilling edition of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. With close competition across all classes and new entries lining up for the coming years, I’m already looking forward to the 2026 edition!
The 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans winners’ trophy and Rolex Daytona.
Editorial Note: The images portrayed in this article are sourced from and used with permission of Rolex SA, Porsche AG and Aston Martin Lagonda LLC, McLaren Group Limited and Ferrari S.p.A. unless stated otherwise.
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