24h Le Mans WINNER: Ferrari
Of course, we start with the obvious winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: Ferrari. For the second year in a row, the Italian sports car manufacturer triumphed at the Sarthe, even though a few things went wrong. Every hypercar driven by the Italians received at least one penalty during the race, including the eventual winner. In addition, there was a strategic error on Saturday evening that put the #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen) far back. All of this is not to mention the open door that almost cost Ferrari the win.
But in the turbulent 24-hour race, no manufacturer and hardly any car can claim to have made it through without making a mistake. The principle was: whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins. The #50 Ferrari maneuvered its way through the at times chaotic rain battle best and although Porsche applied pressure until the end, the Reds’ second factory car also made it onto the podium with a lead of 1.2 seconds. So it is even bearable for the Italians that the AF Corse customer entry had to give up a few hours before the end due to a defect in the electric motor.
24h Le Mans WINNER: Manthey-Porsche
Of course, the focus at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is on the Hypercar category, which is capable of winning overall. But that should not detract in the slightest from Manthey-Porsche’s LMGT3 class victory. In the field of 23 GT3 cars, the #91 911 with Richard Lietz, Morris Schuring and Yasser Shahin prevailed after 281 laps ahead of the #31 BMW M4 GT3. For the long-standing Porsche works team Manthey, it was the fifth class victory at Le Mans after 1999, 2013, 2018 and 2022.
The Austrian Lietz celebrated his fifth GT triumph at his 18th (!) Le Mans start. The sister Porsche with the #92 fell behind after problems with the gearshift actuator. Remarkably, the two Manthey Porsches are now tied at the top of the WEC World Championship table. “Participating here with Porsche and then being able to compete for victory is something very special, and then to achieve victory – that is of course a dream,” said Manthey CEO Nicki Raeder happily.
24h Le Mans WINNER: Spectator record
Record broken for the second year in a row: According to ACO figures, the hypercar boom attracted 329,000 spectators to the Circuit de la Sarthe this weekend – 4,000 more than last year. At times it was impossible to get through the fan village, but traffic around the 13.626-kilometer race track was fairly fluid.
TV channel Nitro was also pleased with the high level of viewer interest in its continuous live broadcast: On average, 130,000 people tuned in to the RTL specialty channel – despite the ongoing European Football Championship. A peak of 340,000 fans watched the start of the race, and around 300,000 watched the finish. In the target group of 14-59 year olds, Nitro achieved 3.0 percent on Sunday.
24h Le Mans WINNER: #12 Jota-Porsche
The Porsche customer team Jota impressively proved that you can count yourself among the winners even with an eighth place overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After Callum Ilott had an accident during training shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the #12 Porsche 963 had to be completely rebuilt. A job that, according to team boss Dieter Gass, would have taken three weeks, was completed by the team in just around 24 hours!
On Friday afternoon, the #12 (Will Stevens, Callum Ilott, Normal Nato) was back on four wheels after the Penske factory team helped out with a car as a parts donor that had previously only driven the parade lap in the city center and was not intended for racing. With the addition of spare parts from the Jota contingent, the Porsche was able to complete a short rollout on the airfield tarmac directly behind the race track on Friday evening in order to complete the full 311 laps in the race later on.
24h Le Mans WINNER: Lamborghini
Apart from Ferrari, there were hardly any real winners among the brands at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Some (such as Toyota, Porsche or Cadillac) can be annoyed about a more or less narrow defeat, others (such as Alpine, BMW or Peugeot) can be annoyed about a lack of pace or a botched race. Lamborghini is the exception: The luxury brand from Emilia-Romagna had no illusions about a potential victory, but took the race as a test run to gain valuable experience in the racing environment.
This was a complete success. Not only did the two SC63s used by Iron Lynx reach the finish without any apparent defects, but one of them, the #63 car (Bortolotti/Kvyat/Mortara), even made it into the top 10. In 2025, they will no longer be satisfied with this, when two Lambos will be permanently involved in the WEC, but for the moment P10 can be considered a success.
24h Le Mans WINNER: Isotta Fraschini
In the ultra-competitive starting field, Isotta Fraschini actually managed to see the checkered flag: 14th place overall for the smallest Hypercar representative, 9 laps behind the winning Ferrari and 4 seconds slower at the top. Only contact with another car forced the Tipo 6 Competizione into the garage for a while, otherwise the LMH Hypercar held up. The Le Mans debutants Carl Bennet (19) and Antonio Serravalle (21), who are inexperienced in racing, did a surprisingly reliable job at the wheel alongside Jean-Karl Vernay (36).
Under the hood of the Isotta hypercar, the majority of technology comes from Germany: the 3-liter V6 turbo engine comes from HWA in Affalterbach. Bosch, who is also the exclusive supplier of the LMDh hybrid drives, supplied most of the electronics. The chassis developed by ARS, meanwhile, went through its wind tunnel runs at Williams Advanced Technologies.
24h Le Mans LOSER: BMW
Three of the four BMW racing cars in the 62-car field retired after just a few hours or had no chance of winning. The #15 LMDh (Dries Vanthoor, Marciello, Wittmann) initially fell back after an early spin by Marco Wittmann and was later shot down by Robert Kubica’s Ferrari.
Robin Frijns threw away the sister car #20 with the Art Car paintwork after around two and a half hours. During the night, bronze driver Ahmad Al-Harthy also crashed the #31 BMW M4 GT3, in which Valentino Rossi made his Le Mans debut. The only bright spot: the second GT3 BMW (Leung, Gelael, Farfus) took second place in the LMGT3 class. “The performance is there, but the result is disappointing,” summed up sports director Roos.
24h Le Mans LOSER: Alpine
In the race, the cars of Mick Schumacher and Ferdinand Habsburg remained on the lead lap, although they were still a bit behind the front. At least until hour 4. Then the problems started. The Mecachrome engine on both cars gave up within a short space of time. Do those responsible at the Renault brand, which produces Formula 1 engines in Viry-Chatillon, regret that Alpine does not manufacture its WEC combustion engines in-house?
24h Le Mans LOSER: Robert Kubica
BMW driver Dries Vanthoor was lucky to only have a headache after the accident with Robert Kubica’s AF Corse Ferrari. The collision between the two hypercars on Saturday at 11pm on the way to the Mulsanne corner was one of the worst of the race. “Sorry FIA, but I’m losing confidence,” tweeted Dries after the 30-second pit stop penalty for the Ferrari, which remained on the lead lap afterward, while the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 was completely destroyed.
Dries’ older brother and Porsche works driver Laurens Vanthoor asked about the recording of the joint Podcasts about Le Mans, whether this episode should perhaps be geo-blocked in Poland… “Having a collision at this point is very dangerous,” said BMW Motorsport Director Andreas Roos to Motorsport-Magazin.comwithout wanting to publicly assess the punishment. “It was an accident at 280 to 300 km/h, the car is a total write-off.”
24h Le Mans LOSER: Toyota
Toyota has nothing to hide after Le Mans. The weekend got off to a complete bad start with a botched qualifying session, but luckily there was no major loss in Le Mans. In the race, the Japanese showed that they could win the 24 hours even with competition.
But in the end it was a bitter defeat, with a deficit of just 14 seconds. Bitter especially because victory seemed possible until shortly before the end, but the rain paved the way for Nicklas Nielsen to save fuel in his Ferrari. People in Cologne will be complaining about the French weather gods for a long time to come: Couldn’t the last downpour have stopped sooner?
24h Le Mans LOSER: Jose Maria Lopez
In the Toyota #7 (Buemi/Kobayashi/Lopez), which narrowly missed out on victory, one driver deserves special mention: Jose Maria Lopez. He could have been the big story of the race. Winning the 24 hours as a reserve driver! That would have been the ultimate crowning achievement for the 2021 Le Mans winner, who moved into the Hypercar cockpit at short notice in place of the injured Mike Conway. But instead, things turned out differently and the three-time touring car world champion was not entirely uninvolved in the Toyota’s defeat.
In the last stint he made what was perhaps the decisive mistake when he spun his GR010 less than an hour before the end while chasing the winning Ferrari. He lost around 15 seconds in the process. As a reminder: he was 14.2 seconds away from victory (although a 1:1 extrapolation is not necessarily possible). Of course it is a little ungrateful to single him out for this mistake, because otherwise he drove a good race. The conditions were difficult and other drivers also made some serious mistakes (eg Kobayashi with his crash in qualifying). But the following still applies: If you mess up at the crucial moment, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a Hypercar cockpit.
24h Le Mans LOSER: Peugeot
The Peugeot 9X8 with starting number 94 (Vandoorne/Di Resta/Duval) held P10 until shortly before the end, only to lose to Lamborghini. Not that tenth place would have made the French team’s performance at their home race that much better. The car, which had been completely redesigned since Imola, simply lacked pace and that was the case over the entire weekend. The drivers knew even before the race that it would not work without a chaotic race.
After Le Mans, the team management celebrated that both Peugeots had finished without any technical problems. The debutants Lamborghini and Isotta-Fraschini also managed to do the same. The Stellantis Group’s standards should actually be different – especially in the second year. To quote an old motorsport saying: Making a fast car reliable is easier than making a reliable car fast.