How Kubica delivered Ferrari its Le Mans hat-trick

Always Ferrari’s race to lose

Expectations that perhaps five or six manufacturers might fight for the win sadly proved unfounded at Le Mans this year. The race was strangely flat for long periods despite the stunning entry featuring eight manufacturers bidding for Hypercar honours.

The three Ferraris dominated the top of the timing screens through most of the race despite disappointing in qualifying, the #50 lining up seventh on the grid, #51 in 11^th and the eventual winner in 13^th. But once the race settled down it was clear this was Ferrari’s to lose — and with three entries running strongly in an era where reliability is much higher than at any other time in Le Mans history, that never really looked like happening.

The Ferraris led 277 of the eventual 387 laps — a record in this Hypercar era, beating 380 laps in 2022 thanks to the uncharacteristic lack of rain at any point during the race and the interruption of just one safety car interlude.

How the race was won

As the beaten works Ferrari crews admitted after the race, the yellow #83 was the fastest of the three 499Ps from the test day the previous weekend onwards. Kubica, Yefei Ye and Phil Hanson looked the strongest and most consistent combination, and indeed they had opened up a decent advantage when the lone safety car, in the 11^th hour, pulled the works Ferraris back to them.  

This wasn’t a completely trouble-free run for the winning AF Corse car, but it’s certainly the case the sister works cars had more setbacks. The #51 picked up a 20-second penalty for a pitlane infringement, but the real turning point of its race landed just after 11am when Alessandro Pier Guidi spun on his way into the pitlane.

In the final hours, the intensity increased as Kubica stayed in the car to see the job through. This was an immense performance as he raced on in hot temperatures for almost three hours and five stints, without error. The two works cars were both managing an engine-related issue Ferrari hasn’t yet fully explained, with the #51 getting ahead of its sister when Antonio Fuoco briefly ran off the road on his outlap following his final pitstop.

But this wasn’t an all-Ferrari podium lockout, and there was a sting in the tail for the #50, which was disqualified from fourth place for a rear wing technical regulation breach on two counts. That has seriously knocked the car’s bid for World Endurance Championship honours, leaving the sister car with a much larger points lead than it already had.

Porsche comes up just short

Penske Porsche Motorsport’s #6 963 proved the closest challenger to Ferrari in those closing hours, with Kevin Estre — sharing with Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell — putting in sterling work in his attempt to make it 20 wins for Porsche at Le Mans. He picked off both works Ferraris but came up 14 seconds short of the winning car after a largely trouble-free run. Frustrating for a watching Roger Penske, who must wait a year for another shot at winning the big race still missing from the Penske roster.

A landmark result

In Kubica, Le Mans has its first Polish winner. Ye is the first Chinese driver to win, and Hanson is only the third Brit to claim an overall victory in a Ferrari, following fellow 499P driver James Calado, and Lord Selsdon of Croydon, who only drove briefly in Ferrari’s first Le Mans win way back in 1949.

But the biggest significance was surely centred on Kubica. It’s been 14 years since the devastating rally accident that almost cost him his right arm and disrupted what should have been a topline Formula 1 career. He was primed to join Ferrari for 2012 but instead faced a new battle to recover from life-changing injuries and return to racing.

His story was already remarkable: the rally comeback, even making it back to F1 for a season with Williams in 2019, even if the car was slow and he was clearly no longer what he had been as a driver.

Then there’s his sportscar successes, with two European Le Mans Series titles in LMP2. But Le Mans was an obvious target to complete the circle, especially now he is driving a Ferrari – and as he said afterwards, this makes up for the heartbreak from his and Ye’s first Le Mans in 2021 when their ORECA coasted to a halt on the last lap, robbing them of a class victory.

“It’s a special day,” said 40-year-old Kubica. “Winning Le Mans [has been my ambition] since I started coming here in 2021. I really enjoyed my first Le Mans although it ended in the most dramatic way, losing the win in the LMP2 category on the last lap. I really enjoyed it like a small kid, like when I was racing in karting, but the difference was I was already 36 years old. The emotions that weekend gave me were something special and this one for sure will be emotional. And the Rolex [watch, for winning] will be nice!”

The hard-luck stories and disappointments

As usual, and with so many potent entries, there were plenty with tales of woe at Le Mans. Alex Lynn was overjoyed on Thursday night when he scored an exceptional pole position for Cadillac as Jota’s Hertz-backed cars locked out the front row after a terrific Hyperpole session.

But the British-run American cars were never in the frame for victory, the Jota car Lynn shared with Will Stevens and Norman Nato proving the best of the four Caddys in fifth place on the road — which became fourth with the #50 Ferrari’s disqualification. They hoped for so much more, but the V-Series.R lacked straight-line speed and the two Wayne Taylor Racing entries, on the team’s Le Mans debut, both failed to finish.

Toyota, too, fell short. One of its GR010 Hybrids remained in contention until late into Sunday morning, only for a front-left wheel to detach following a pitstop. Toyota claimed a “broken component” was the cause and it cost the #8 entry 20 minutes.

The #7 Toyota picked up bodywork damage on the first lap and later endured a 50-second stop-go penalty for pitlane speeding, but Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries kept plugging away to finish sixth, fifth after the Ferrari disqualification.

BMW looked capable of finishing in the top six, only for both M Hybrid V8s to find themselves in the garage at the same time in the final hours with reliability problems. In contrast, Aston Martin was quietly satisfied with a double finish for its two new Valkyries. The glorious squall from its V12 won the sonic battle this year, as expected.

The car is clearly not quick enough at this stage, but 12^th and 14^th in the final classification is respectable in the circumstances. Hopes of sneaking into the top ten were not to be, but The Heart of Racing Aston Martin team will push on with expectations to be properly in the fight 12 months from now.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.