Ferrari takes historic Le Mans win in chaotic race after 50 years away

Ferrari has won the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours after a dramatic 100th anniversary race, where all five frontrunning teams led, before Ferrari and Toyota fought an hours-long battle for victory.

The highly-charged race saw an action-packed first half, with multiple overtakes throughout the grid, and marked by rain showers that shook up the order as cars slid and crashed into the night. But as the morning approached, the race became more settled and a duel emerged at the front between the No8 Toyota and No51 Ferrari.

The two cars swapped the lead, matched the other on pitstop strategy and pushed as hard as they dare with the gap between them often just a few seconds.

The result was too close to call until, with just over 90 minutes remaining, Ryo Hirakawa in the Toyota, in hot pursuit of the leading Ferrari, locked his rear wheels under braking in to Indianapolis, the car skewed and slid into the barriers, damaging the rear wing.

Repair work left the car more than 3min behind, and with Ferrari just needed to bring the car home, but there was still time for a final twist as, with 22min remaining, on the final pitstop, the car refused to pull away. After a nerve-wracking minute for the team, the headlights flickered on and it moved off to victory.

Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi took the top step of the podium for Ferrari’s first overall Le Mans victory since 1965, 50 years after its last factory entry in the race.

Hirakawa, Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley in the patched-up Toyota were second, with the No2 Cadillac crew of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook completing the podium.

There were times during the race when each of the teams, plus Peugeot and Porsche were convincingly running in the lead, but none were spared the brusque Le Mans treatment, as their challenges were dented by reliability problems, driver errors and slower cars.

Behind the frontrunners, the No10 Inter Europol Competition Oreca beat Team WRT to the LMP2 victory, while in GTE, the No33 Corvette came out top from a tight group of leading cars.

For most of the race, the Garage 56 ‘experimental’ NASCAR entry ran between those classes, setting consistent lap times. But it hit trouble in the final three hours with a broken gearbox. A rapid replacement saw the car back on track before the chequered flag and it was (unofficially) classified 39th.

In a race that began by commemorating the famous names that have graced its grid, as well as the legends forged on its unique asphalt, it was perhaps apt that Ferrari won the Le Mans with two drivers who have only just emerged into the limelight.

Calado and Pier Guidi have won multiple Le Mans races and World Endurance Championships for Ferrari in the GTE class, but this is their first year at a top-level team and they shouldered the responsibility, alongside former Alfa Romeo F1 driver, and current Ferrari F1 reserve, Giovinazzi.

The No51 car started second on the grid behind the sister car of No50 on pole, but neither could hold off the charging Toyotas and Buemi took the lead before the end of the first lap.

Behind, however, the No311 Cadillac of Jack Aitken, slid in to the barriers. Despite a destroyed front end and front-left tyre facing inwards, he managed to limp back to the pits, but repairing the damage required a safety car.

The restart brought 90min of relentless racing as the two Ferraris tussled with both Toyotas and the No7 Porsche of Felipe Nasr closed up to add to the pressure.

As Buemi pulled away, three Porsches moved in to the battle with Mike Conway in the No7 Toyota and the Ferraris, in a closely-matched pack.

Out of the fight was Sébastien Bourdais in the No3 Cadillac, who was hit from behind by a GTE car as he braked for a slow zone and lost almost a lap in the pits.

Battle was soon paused, however, with the arrival of more rain. A heavy downpour sent cars in all directions at Porsche Curves: the No709 Glickenhaus of Esteban Gutierrez spun, slid across the track and then slewed sideways again, blocking the exit road, just as Lilou Wadoux’s No83 Ferrari came careering backwards after aquaplaning, swiping the Hypercar and then crashing into the No31 Team WRT LMP2 car of Ferdinand Habsburg.

Scott Dixon was next on the scene in his No3 Cadillac, performing a remarkable 540-degree pirouette and then continuing on as, in the background, the No 86 Porsche spun and hit the barriers.

A safety car was inevitable, and the delay was lengthy, as a new restart procedure was implemented.

It had the effect of lining all the cars up category by category in their running order, removing any time advantage, and offering plenty of opportunity for the ambitious.

The track remained wet and slippery, however, the No93 Peugeot finding this out to its cost, and sliding into the gravel; under the safety car after changing wet tyres for slicks.

Yifei Ye spotted an opportunity from the start, overtaking four cars in his Jota Porsche to move from sixth to second and then muscling past the No94 Peugeot to lead.

But minutes after gaining the place, Ye span heavily, tearing the rear bodywork off his car and limping to the pits.

Peugeot remained strong in the wet; the No94 car remaining in the fight for the lead until just before 3am when Gustavo Menezes ran off and into the barriers, wrecking the front-right of the car and losing vast amounts of time as he limped back to the pits, sparks flying.

A series of technical issues gradually removed the four-pronged Porsche attack, and both Toyota and Ferrari were weakened too: the No7 Toyota suffering terminal damage when it too was hit from behind on the approach to a slow zone, and then the No50 Ferrari suffering a leak and losing 20min in the pits.

By around 3am, that left the No8 Toyota leading and the No5 Ferrari in pursuit.

The Toyota was leading at first light, and pulled out a gap of 40 seconds, thanks to the efforts of Hirakawa and Hartley, as well as a slow zone, which cost Ferrari 20sec.

But Pier Guidi in the Ferrari then began reeling in the Toyota before handing over to Calado who passed the Toyota in the pits. The Japanese team had to change the car’s nose after what is thought to have been a collision with a squirrel. The damage had affected its pace, allowing Ferrari to close, said Toyota.

The chase was then reversed, with Toyota trying to close down Ferrari. The Japanese marque then got past in the pits with the first appearance of Ferrari’s getaway issue, when it stalled in the pits.

Pier Guidi once more had the task of chasing down the Toyota and again Ferrari got ahead.

Ahead of the race, Giovinazzi had said that the team would aim to put pressure on Toyota and did just that, keeping the pace high in a bid to build the gap and using the lapped No50 car, which was behind the Toyota, to push the rival team.

Brendan Hartley was visibly wringing every second out of the car in an effort to match the Ferrari’s pace and handed over to Hirakawa to do the same, but the Toyota ended in the barriers, leaving the path clear for Ferrari to take an historic win.