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AF Corse Conquers 2025 Le Mans

AF Corse Conquers 2025 Le Mans
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Ferrari’s satellite 499P scored victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a late charge from Porsche denied the Italian manufacturer a clean sweep of the podium.

Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson came through aboard the No. 83 AF Corse car to beat the factory Ferraris in a race that was mostly dominated by the Prancing Horse until the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 emerged as a threat in the closing hours.

It marks a first overall Le Mans win for all three drivers of the yellow-liveried No. 83 car, and a second in the FIA World Endurance Championship for the third-string Ferrari following its Lone Star Le Mans win last season.

Ferrari, meanwhile, took its third consecutive overall triumph in the French endurance classic, following wins by the Nos. 51 and 50 factory machines in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The No. 83 Ferrari took the lead at the start of the 20th hour when the No. 51 Ferrari was forced to make a second pit stop in as many laps due to a poorly-timed full-course yellow, at which point Alessandro Pier Guidi spun in the gravel and lost 50 seconds.

From that point onwards, the No. 83 car appeared to hold the cards, despite earlier radio traffic that indicated a possibility of team orders being invoked.

However, the late resurgence of the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport car, which had Kevin Estre at the wheel for the closing stages, afforded Ferrari no opportunity to prioritize the works cars, which were also struggling with engine issues late on.

Kubica made his final stop with 40 minutes to go, taking four fresh Michelin tires, and while a fuel-only stop for Estre allowed him to reduce the gap to a little over ten seconds, the Polish driver’s tire advantage told and he took the checkered flag 14.084 seconds clear.

Completing the podium was the WEC points-leading No. 51 crew of Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado after a late swap with the sister No. 50 machine of last year’s winners Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen.

Porsche’s other 963s never appeared to have the pace to match the No. 6 car.

The sister full-time No. 5 WEC machine of Michael Christensen, Julien Andlauer and Mathieu Jaminet was seventh, a lap down, while the No. 4 car of Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Pascal Wehrlein was ninth.

Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA ultimately lacked the race pace to go with its one-lap prowess that allowed it to lock out the front row.

Having slipped out of the lead battle as early as the opening hour, the British team’s No. 12 and No. 38 cars enjoyed largely smooth runs but were unable to take the battle to Ferrari or the No. 6 Porsche.

Will Stevens, Alex Lynn and Norman Nato brought home the No. 12 Cadillac for fifth, 1 minute and 48 seconds behind the winners, while the No. 38 car of Sebastien Bourdais, Jenson Button and Earl Bamber split the remaining Penske Porsches for eighth.

The last car on the lead was the delayed GT-One retro-liveried No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid in sixth.

After the No. 7 lost ground with an off for Kamui Kobayashi and a stop-and-go penalty for pit lane speeding, Toyota’s main hope for victory was the sister No. 8 machine of Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley.

The No. 8 crew had run as high as second at the halfway mark, prior to the sole safety car period of the race, but was down to fifth and struggling to hang on to the leaders when Hirakawa suffered a front-left wheel nut failure.

That forced the Japanese driver to crawl back to the pits at slow speed before a long trip to the garage put the No. 8 car seven laps down, leaving it 16th.

A battle between French manufacturers for the final points position on a difficult weekend for both French manufacturers was resolved in favor of Alpine.

Best of the A424s was the No. 35 shared by Ferdinand Habsburg, Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi in tenth, one place ahead of the sister No. 36 car, which was delayed by getting caught at the pit exit during the safety car period and a subsequent off for Jules Gounon at Mulsanne.

Peugeot’s best finisher was the No. 94 car in 12th, with the No. 93 car having gone multiple laps down early in the race.

Aston Martin’s pair of Valkyries both made the finish on the car’s Le Mans debut, with the No. 009 the better-placed of the two British cars in 13th, three laps down.

BMW saw a chance of a double top-ten finish crumble in the final stages of the race as both of the Bavarian’s marques M Hybrid V8s were struck by separate issues almost simultaneously.

The No. 20 car was 18th after a 37-minute trip to the garage to resolve an engine issue, while the No. 15 BMW lost even more ground with multiple long stops to address a hybrid system cooling issue, ending up last of the Hypercar finishers, 26 laps down.

The only two retirements in Hypercar were the two additional Cadillacs of Action Express Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing, both of which stopped on track with losses of power in the morning hours.

In a relatively clean race interrupted by just one safety car period and ten full-course yellows, the winning No. 83 Ferrari completed 387 laps, breaking the Hypercar distance record of 380 laps established by Toyota in 2022.

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